John Cornyn Mocks Concept Of 'Otherwise Law-Abiding' Illegal Immigrants To Former ICE Special Agent

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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) asked former ICE/HSI Supervisory Special Agent Victor Avila about illegal immigration.

Transcript

00:00Clarify just a few things. Ms. Fleischaker, do you believe that everybody who is all individuals

00:13who are under final orders of deportation should actually be deported?

00:18I believe that people with final orders of removal have gone through the legal process

00:24and then are eligible for removal, for deportation.

00:28You don't think they should be deported or you do think they should be deported?

00:31I think that those are meant, those are the people who can be removed. Those are the people

00:36who should be removed.

00:38So there actually are some illegal aliens who should be deported. How about convicted criminals?

00:45Should they be deported?

00:47Undocumented convicted criminals? Those are the people who I think we should be prioritizing

00:52for removal.

00:53Mr. Avila, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about otherwise law-abiding individuals who

01:02violate our immigration laws and come into the United States. First of all, illegal entry

01:07in the United States is a crime, is it not?

01:10That's right. We call it EWI, Entry Without Inspection. That's a violation of 8 U.S.C.

01:141325.

01:15And in your lengthy experience in law enforcement and dealing with the border, is that the only

01:22law that people who illegally enter the country violate?

01:27No. It depends how you enter, when you enter, how many times you've entered and been encountered.

01:35There's very different types of removal. I think we overuse the term deportation. But believe

01:40it or not, most people, most illegals in this country are removed without a deportation order.

01:46There's expedited removals. There's voluntary returns. There's many different types of removals.

01:51The actual deportations are executed by an immigration judge under that order.

01:57So in addition to illegal entry, is it your experience that many individuals who enter the country illegally

02:04engage in identity theft? Oh, my goodness. I conducted so many fraud cases, including Social Security cards,

02:13identity theft. I have a twin sister. She was a victim of identity theft by a female illegal alien while

02:21she was in law school. It took her, it was so much time and such a hard effort to gain her identity back,

02:29that the Social Security Administration actually issued her a new Social Security number. And that's very difficult to do.

02:35Many, many times, we're talking about marriage frauds, passport frauds. I conducted many search warrants

02:43where I found many documents, fraudulent documents for these organizations, visas, and you name it. So yes,

02:49especially in the employment capacity where these employers are denying knowledge and they hide behind that when they say,

02:58well, the illegal did provide me with an actual Social Security number or an ID. It happens to belong to

03:03someone else or someone that doesn't exist altogether. And do individuals who enter the country illegally

03:10engage in identity theft or perhaps have forged Social Security cards and the like, do they typically

03:18comply with other laws like federal tax laws and other laws? No. Or in other words, my point is that,

03:28is there such a thing as a person who enters the country illegally who does not violate any other laws?

03:34No, typically there's other violations of law that sometimes the Democrats refer to as civil

03:39infractions or civil administrative. And that's, I think there's a big confusion between the criminal

03:47violation of law versus the civil violation of immigration law. The Democrats seem to convolute it

03:53and make it into one which is very, very different. And they commit a lot of different criminal and civil

04:00violations amongst, after they come in with a failure to have even drivers or vehicle insurance,

04:09things like that, right? That matter in my state of Texas, why our rates are so high,

04:14emergency room costs, many, many other economic impacts throughout the U.S.

04:20Dr. Valiz, I certainly respect your public service. Thank you for that. I wanted to

04:28ask you though, based on your testimony, I was wondering, do you believe all

04:33laws should be enforced or just some of the laws?

04:39Dr. Valiz, thank you, Chairman. Chairman, in my 30 years experience as a police commander,

04:46working the streets, working with federal task forces, I always focus on the most violent offenses,

04:53violent offenders. My teen and I were involved in hundreds of felony criminal investigations,

05:00ranging from drug trafficking, weapons, and shootings.

05:03Dr. Valiz, and we appreciate your service as I started out by saying, but the question I have is,

05:08do you believe that all laws should be enforced or just some laws?

05:12Dr. Valiz, if the laws are passed by legislation,

05:18law enforcement has the discretion to enforce those laws.

05:22And I personally, I prioritize enforcing the most violent offenses, make sure communities are safe.

05:29Dr. Valiz, don't they frequently, in your experience in law enforcement, call that selective prosecution?

05:35To just go after some cases, but not other cases of similarly situated persons who violate the same law?

05:42Mr. Chairman, currently, I saw it as discretionary powers of sworn officers that have

05:49the discretion to select the most violent offenses and focus on the most violent offenders in the communities.

05:55Well, I, um, ladies and gentlemen, we do, we do have a vote on, so I'm going to turn the,

06:03turn the mic over to Senator Cruz, uh, here momentarily. I just want to thank all of you

06:09for being here today and offering your testimony. And again to Ms. Nobles and Ms. Vega, uh, if you have

06:15our condolences. And I think we've had a, had a test case, uh, between, uh, what happens when you enforce

06:23our immigration laws, which we've seen under President Trump, and what happens when you don't

06:29enforce the immigration laws on a uniform basis under President Biden. But I thank all of you

06:34for being here, and I'll turn the floor over to Senator Cruz.

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