Ranking Member Jayapal’s Opening Statement at Hearing on How Trump Is Undermining Public Safety By Redirecting Law Enforcement to Immigration Crackdown

Washington, D.C. (June 30, 2026)—Today, Rep. Jayapal, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, delivered opening remarks at a hearing on Trump and House Republicans’ attempt to coerce states into carrying out a federal mass deportation agenda, diverting essential local resources and making our communities less safe. 

Below are Ranking Member Jayapal’s remarks at today’s hearing.

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 WATCH Ranking Member Jayapal’s opening statement.

Ranking Member Pramila Jayapal

Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement

Hearing on “Sanctuary Policies: Victims’ Perspectives” 

June 30, 2026

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Let me start by offering my deepest condolences to you, Mrs. Gorman, and to you, Mr. Abraham, for the loss of your children. As a parent myself, I can think of no greater loss. And I appreciate you being here to share their stories and their lives with us. 

Unfortunately, this hearing is the fourth time in this Committee that we’ve had a hearing on sanctuary cities—the fourth time. And there’s many other things that we could be doing other than this. I would have loved to have had some hearings on the unconstitutionality of the president’s executive order on eliminating birthright citizenship. This is something that the Supreme Court just ruled today, in a 6-3 majority, was unconstitutional. And yet this was an executive order that caused so much fear and trauma across the country. We could have been discussing that, but we haven’t.

Instead, we have had this series of hearings designed simply to attack the very trust policies that research has shown again and again and again have saved lives and kept communities safe by maintaining the necessary and important division between the enforcement of federal civil immigration law and the enforcement of local criminal laws. This division ensures that people don’t fear local law enforcement who try to enforce immigration law, but actually come forward to report crimes when they happen. 

The Trump Administration, however, has ignored decades of research and done the opposite, blurring the lines between immigration enforcement and law enforcement so much that they essentially no longer exist—destroying trust in communities, creating fear and even deporting witnesses to important crimes that cannot then be prosecuted effectively. 

On top of that, the Trump Administration has diverted over 28,000 officers from their critical law enforcement roles to work on immigration enforcement instead. This has led non-immigration criminal prosecutions to fall to their lowest point in decades. Gun prosecutions have fallen by more than 10 percent and investigators worked 33 percent fewer hours on child exploitation cases. Nearly one in every five FBI agents have been reassigned to arrest immigrants instead of conducting complex criminal investigations of corruption, espionage, terrorism, cyberattacks, and transnational gangs—all things that are necessary to keep Americans safe. Similarly, around one in every two Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents, two in three Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents; and one in five U.S. marshals have all been reassigned to immigration enforcement. From within ICE, thousands of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents are focused on immigration enforcement instead of their stated mission of combating transnational crimes such as drug and weapons smuggling, child exploitation, and human trafficking.

During the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, federal prosecutions of gun and drug offenses dropped by nearly 90 percent.  DHS’s former chief of staff says as a result of all of this our government is “asleep at the wheel” and “less prepared to stop [terrorist attacks] than at any point since 9/11.”  

And for what? Arrests of immigrants without a single criminal conviction surged by 770%. And these immigrants of all immigration statuses get locked up or deported or disappeared at tremendous cost to you, the taxpayers, and to the traumatized communities that are left behind.

That’s not a public safety agenda. That’s a public safety disaster.

Let’s just remind people of what this immigration enforcement strategy has led to. Under Donald Trump, ICE doubled in size. Instead of funding Americans’ healthcare or housing or childcare, Republicans poured over $210 BILLION dollars into ICE and CBP. DHS officers killed two U.S. citizens in cold blood in Minnesota, beat and detained countless U.S. citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights, and broke down doors without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment. ICE has imprisoned 400,000 people just in the interior of this country since Trump came in: parents, children, military veterans, US citizens, people on valid visas and people who have never committed a single crime. The private prison companies who incarcerate these people get massive profits, turn around and contribute to Republicans and Trump’s campaigns while maintaining the most horrific conditions inside these prisons that have led to a record 51 deaths in ICE detention just since President Trump took office.

So what does all this do for Americans? It hurts them. Their communities get torn apart, their kids lose friends, the businesses suffer from lack of workers. And guess what? Americans actually LOSE jobs due to harsh immigration enforcement. The Brookings Institution looked at increased ICE enforcement in 86 metro areas in red and blue states and found that up to 297,000 American-born workers have lost their jobs as a result of ICE’s increased enforcement.

This all needs to stop. Our hearings should be on how public safety has been hurt thanks to this Administration’s policies. Or on holding the people who killed and detained American citizens accountable. Or on the numerous times that this Administration denies due process in violation of our Constitution. That’s what the American people want, not more of what we are doing today. More than 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s immigration policies. 

Americans want Trump and Republicans to focus on lowering their grocery prices and stop giving tax breaks to billionaires while stripping healthcare from tens of millions of Americans. 

But just like Trump has insulted Americans by refusing to sign the most consequential bipartisan housing bill in a generation, and by calling it unimportant and a “yawn”—he’s insulting Americans by continuing harsh immigration policies that hurt safety and hurt opportunity for ALL Americans.  

Instead, Republicans want to coerce states and localities into doing the federal government’s job despite numerous court orders that have declared immigration detainers unlawful violations of the 4th amendment. They want to force local police departments to prioritize their limited resources on immigration enforcement instead of encouraging all community members to come forward and report crimes without worrying about their own or a loved one’s immigration status. 

I hope that this Committee does hold hearings on the unconstitutionality of this Administration’s policies. But certainly, when Republicans are no longer in office after November, we will do just that in the majority. 

I look forward to hearing from all our witnesses today and I yield back.

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