During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) spoke about an executive order signed by President Trump which shifts 6,000 federal agents who were working other criminal investigations to pursue deportations.
00:03Ms. Stephan, thanks for what you do, and thanks for endorsing this bill.
00:08It sounds like a good one, but it is an expansion of the federal enforcement, is it not?
00:13It would not apply to your jurisdiction, correct?
00:17It actually is, I think, an expansion.
00:21If the task force, I read it a few times, puts together this fusion center,
00:27like a law enforcement coordination center,
00:30then that information is supposed to feed to the locals and all the way up.
00:35So I view it as, like the other task forces on fentanyl, where we work with DEA,
00:42like that it's going to bring that fusion together to assist locals as well.
00:48But the leadership under this legislation is federal, correct?
00:52Absolutely, yes.
00:54That's the point I want to make.
00:55And the reason I'm making that point is going back to what I said in my opening statement.
01:00The investigations of these crimes at the federal level depends on the Department of Homeland Security, does it not?
01:09That's what I read, yes, sir.
01:11That's the way I understand as well.
01:12In February, the Department of Homeland Security in Washington ordered its entire investigations division, composed of 6,000 agents,
01:23to divert focus on drug dealers, terrorists, and human traffickers,
01:27and shift priority to the Trump administration's mission of deporting people who are in the United States illegally.
01:34The new focus for the DHS Homeland Security Agency, current and former officials say,
01:41is in keeping with the president's executive orders that demand a wholesale shift in federal law enforcement resources toward immigration crackdowns and removal.
01:49But they warn the shift will undermine high-profile investigations into some of the most dangerous transnational threats Americans face,
02:00including Mexican drug cartels smuggling deadly fentanyl across the border from Mexico.
02:06Chris Campanelli, former HSI supervisory agent, said,
02:09A lot of my colleagues were afraid this was going to happen.
02:13This is going to be a total train wreck.
02:15So let's put the cards on the table.
02:17Yes, if anyone is involved in illegally being in the United States, undocumented or otherwise,
02:23and is engaged in criminal activity that is dangerous to themselves and others,
02:28they should be removed, period, prosecuted, period, or never let in in the first place, period.
02:33But what about those who are living here who have been here for years,
02:36working a job, showing up every day, raising a family, which is mainly American citizens, and paying their taxes?
02:44Is that a priority over what we're discussing today?
02:46Not in my book.
02:48As far as I'm concerned, we should go after, with limited law enforcement resources at the federal level,
02:53the most dangerous and threatening situations imaginable.
02:57I've described a few of them.
02:59The subject of this hearing is another one, in retail theft.
03:01I don't doubt for a second that what has been described to us today is part of a much bigger network,
03:08even reaching into drug syndication.
03:10But to say we're worried about whether someone who is cutting grass on a golf course today is undocumented,
03:16and we ought to put the resources of the federal government into putting them in an detention facility and deporting them,
03:22I don't think that's as high a priority as the subject of this hearing today.
03:26Ms. Stephan, let me ask you about criminal forfeiture.
03:29Can you describe, in the most general terms, this is not a quiz or a bar exam,
03:35why criminal forfeiture being added to this bill is important?
03:40Because all of crime, this works on greed and on money.
03:47So being effective means you have to forfeit.
03:50You have to take away the things that they stole.
03:53It's absolutely important because that's what they rely on, which is profit.
03:57I'm asking you to get down to a little lower level in your primary education course here on what criminal forfeiture is.
04:05Criminal forfeiture is where you take monies from bad doers, wrongdoers, because they've committed a crime.
04:14You're able to take cars, their homes, anything that is related to their criminal activity.
04:22And there's an expansion of that in this new bill.
04:25As I understand it.
04:27Is that where you see it as well?
04:29Criminal forfeiture?
04:30I saw criminal forfeiture.
04:31I didn't see that it expanded beyond what is normally allowed, which is a nexus between the crime and the activity.
04:41But I can go back and study it, Senator.
04:43I should do the same thing.
04:45I'm not being critical of the bill or of your analysis of it.
04:48Right.
04:48But I'm saying that the notion for dealing with some network and you find the kingpins, that their personal possessions could be on the table as well if they're found guilty.
05:00Is that correct?
05:01That's right.
05:02Right.
05:02I'm all for it.
05:03Yes.
05:04That sounds good.
05:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:06Yeah, before I call on Cornyn, I think this speaks a little bit to what you were just talking about, Congress and state legislatures have authorized the use of asset discouragement for more than 200 years.
