Chuy García: Republicans 'Pretend To Be Concerned' About Immigration System, 'Don't Want To Fix' It

Forbes Breaking News

In a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Chuy García (D-IL) spoke about the U.S. immigration system.

Transcript

00:00We're here in the back. Thank you for coming. We see you, and I yield back. Mr. Frey?

00:09Mr. Garcia. Mr. Garcia, I wasn't trying to skip you. I have to leave,

00:13so I'm getting Mr. Frey to come and sit in the chair. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:18Before I make a few remarks, I want to just observe that the bulk of this hearing has been

00:26about illegal or unauthorized immigration, and we're supposed to be talking about legal

00:33immigration and visas and the visa system. In addition to that, people went as far as to

00:41talk about an existential threat. People talked inaccurately about the last amnesty that was

00:50granted, which is incorrect. It was 39 years ago that Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and

00:58Control Act, known as IRCA, signed into law by President Reagan for those who may be mistaken

01:06or were too young or not born yet to be able to talk about it as if it were a fact. But once again,

01:13we're here so that Republicans can pretend to be concerned about an immigration system that they

01:20have consistently undermined. For more than 30 years, 39 to be exact, Republicans, with a few

01:28exceptions, temporary ones, have rejected immigration reform and embraced largely a racist narrative that

01:37portrays immigrants as criminals and terrorists, all for short-term political gain. And I say that as a

01:44proud American who also is an immigrant to this country, we have a lawless authoritarian regime that is

01:54terrorizing communities, kidnapping people off the streets, deporting U.S. citizens, including children

02:01with cancer, locking up nearly 60,000 people and depriving them of even food and basic necessities,

02:10and openly violating the law and preventing members of Congress from doing oversight visits.

02:19I experienced that last week with three other members in Illinois. And as my colleagues have pointed

02:27out, the administration is cracking down on legal immigration through overbroad and discriminatory

02:34actions targeting international students and imposing travel bans on 19 countries. It is a cynical and cruel

02:43campaign that does nothing to improve the lives of working families. And the people of this country see

02:49through it. That's why the president's polling on immigration is underwater. Even though Republicans don't

02:57want to fix our immigration system, it's more important than ever to promote a thoughtful and nuanced

03:04approach to these issues. And we can look to history to inform our path forward. Mr. Naurastat,

03:13thank you for being here today. I want to ask you about the Bracetto program in the 1950s and 60s.

03:20That was a program, as you know. Do you think that it was more effective than the overly punitive system

03:29that we have in place today? And what lessons about the visa process can we learn from that program

03:35today? It was far more effective than the process we have today. It was not perfect by any means. There

03:41were definitely problems, I think, in any of these programs. The problems, though, back then were largely

03:45caused by too many rules and restrictions and, frankly, by the Mexican government side, which sort of

03:51inserted a lot of corruption to steal wages from some of these workers. But what we saw was at the beginning

03:57of the expansion of the Bracetto program in 1952, there were around 2 million or so unauthorized

04:03immigrants in the U.S., almost all of them from Mexico. And within a few years of this program,

04:09the border flows, the illegal crossings fell by over 95 percent, and the illegal immigrant population

04:15fell by 90 percent because they got these visas. This was ended, this program, in 1964. And that is when

04:22the modern illegal immigration program or illegal immigration problem began was because Americans

04:30still demanded immigrant laborers, but Congress had made it illegal. Thank you for that. And I ask you

04:39that because it's personal to me. My father came to this country under that program, eventually became a

04:46lawful permanent resident and petitioned for us. That's how we arrived in 1965, another historic year

04:53in immigration law. So if Republicans want to restore integrity, and I think you corrected the record,

05:02sir, and security to the visa process or enhance it, perhaps, then they should stop criminalizing

05:08immigrants at large and destroying those lawful pathways. If America wants to stay the vital

05:16country that it has been and remain a beacon for the rest of the world, then we need to restore those

05:23pathways which have been shut down. Thank you, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have a

05:29unanimous consent request. I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record this congressional research

05:36report titled U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Operations and Issues for Congress, and it shows

05:44that out of 10 million forms processed by USCIS in 2023, only 1.6 percent were referred to the Office of

05:51Fraud Detection and National Security for any...

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