During a joint House and Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison talked about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents refusing to let lawmakers into a holding facility.
00:00I now will recognize the very distinguished gentleman from the 4th District of Illinois, Mr. Garcia, who's been such a leader on so many things we've been talking about today.
00:09Thank you, Ranking Members Raskin and Durbin, for this very timely convening, and of course to all the Attorney General that are here today and have been leading the fight against this administration's lawlessness, including my friend A.G. Raul from Illinois.
00:30It's hard to believe that it's only been five months since Trump was sworn into office and that he and his lapdogs have done everything to weaponize the federal government to serve their corrupt, criminal, cruel, and racist agenda.
00:46This isn't about America first. This is about Trump first, and it's an openly authoritarian movement that demands obedience to its leader who has violated the law in so many ways that it's hard to quantify in this perilous moment.
01:04Again, I'm grateful that we have a group of attorneys general who are fighting back, not just because of policy disagreements, but because of what's on the line, and that's constitutional rule.
01:17Attorney General Raul, thank you for being here, and of course, thank you for everything that you do to protect the rights of people in Illinois and around the country.
01:25Attorney General Raul, can you, even though we touched on it already, explain the importance of the lawsuit over birthright citizenship, the executive order, and why this is personal to you?
01:39Yes. Thank you, Congressman. I thank New Jersey on their leadership.
01:45Thank you, Congressman.
02:15Thank you, Congressman.
02:45He spoke about, I think it was Ranking Member Raskin mentioned, you know, how any lawyer could come in and present an argument with regards to it, but he also said it was just blatantly unconstitutional.
03:00The language of the 14th Amendment is clear. If you're born here, you're a citizen here.
03:04Thank you. And changing gears, can you talk a little bit about the work to prevent the dismantlement of the Department of Education, and if that were to occur, what's the harm, what's the damage being done to children and students and parents and teachers, all of the implications of that EO if it came to fruition?
03:29Yes, Congressman, as you know, my former basketball teammate was the former Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and we've discussed the damage in particular to some of the most vulnerable students,
03:45students with disabilities that services through the Department of Education go towards helping their students who won't have access to processing of financial aid such that they can attend schools.
04:07There's funding that helps school districts in some of the most vulnerable areas of our state that will be disadvantaged by dismantling the Department of Education.
04:23Well, thank you and your colleagues for your work on that front.
04:26And finally, to a former member of the House from the state of Minnesota, last week, General Ellison, three colleagues and I went to an ICE processing center that's now been turned into a detention center.
04:46We stood in the hot sun in the morning. People had been in line already because they had appointments.
04:51They were checking in as they were requested to do so. We identified ourselves. It was hot, almost two hours.
05:00They would not open the door. When they finally sent someone to talk to us after I yelled through a fence on the side,
05:09a gentleman came over, masked, nameplate, concealed, and told us that if we wanted to request access to that facility,
05:20we had to send an email. I corrected him and told him we had every right to be there.
05:27Was I within what the law states? And what do you think about that experience for four members who are seeking to interview constituents
05:39that we had reason to believe were at that center and the denial of our ability to conduct oversight?
05:47It's outrageous. It's wrong. And we have to loudly protest it.
05:55We have to seek out all remedies available to not allow this kind of behavior to occur.
06:01The mask issue is something deeply disturbing, as I noted a little earlier, and I think you heard me.
06:09I've done the research on whether or not there is a mask or no mask requirement for ICE agents.
06:16There doesn't appear to be, but there should be. And it's something that I really hope that we can see get passed.
06:21And I think a lot of people on both sides of the aisle will agree that it should be.
06:25It's outrageous and it's wrong. But I hope you'll allow me to just say, you asked A.G. Raul about education.
06:32Think about it this way. They want to attack Head Start. They want to attack Job Corps.
06:38They want to attack K-12 education if you have DEI. They want to attack libraries and museums.
06:44They want to attack NPR and PBS. They're literally trying to dumb down America, if you look at it in a comprehensive way.
06:52Why are they attacking every way that the public gets to know about stuff? Just a thought.
