Restoring Immigration Enforcement in America
U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary
By Jessica M. Vaughan on January 22, 2025
Watch entire Committee Hearing.
The late, great lawmaker and civil rights leader Barbara Jordan famously distilled the definition of an effective immigration system – in testimony before this very Committee -- to a single sentence: “those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.” It has been disheartening to witness the abandonment of those common sense principles over the last four years, as the Biden administration has worked to undermine our immigration laws rather than enforce them. While we can have high confidence that returning president Trump will be acting swiftly to reverse course, the experience of the last four years reveals that there are many parts of our immigration law that need to be updated and bolstered, so it is essential for Congress to act as well, and to reclaim its authority to establish immigration law for the nation.
This statement is intended to offer a list of recommendations for Congressional action to reform and reinforce immigration law that go beyond the critical improvements already contained in the Secure the Border Act of 2023 (H.R. 2), which the House recently debated and passed.
It includes recommendations for changes not only to enhance the work of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but also calls for changes to visa and immigration benefits programs to address overstays, fraud and other problems that are also forms of illegal immigration.
https://cis.org/Testimony/Restoring-Immigration-Enforcement-America
