Washington, D.C. (January 22, 2025)—Today, Rep. Zoe Lofgren delivered opening remarks at the Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement hearing on immigration enforcement.
Below are Rep. Lofgren’s remarks, as delivered, at today’s subcommittee hearing.
WATCH Rep. Lofgren’s opening statement.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren
Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement
Hearing on “Restoring Immigration Enforcement in America”
January 22, 2025
Immigration to the United States has played an important role over the centuries in making America a vibrant, prosperous and successful country, but it is broadly agreed that our current immigration system is broken. We need to make necessary reforms and then vigorously enforce the law. We need to provide the resources necessary to secure the border and provide that only those who are permitted entry to the United States are in fact so admitted. The resources should include adequate personnel, technology, and other tools to allow for the orderly entry of only those who secured the proper permission for entry. But we also need to change the law, to reform the law. And when we look to the Administration, I think sometimes we should look in the mirror because the necessary reform of immigration law is a failure of Congress.
We have tried over the years to improve the law, and in every case have failed. With our immigration system broken and no longer functioning as it was once intended, change is necessary. Now I would include that—from families separated due to overly punitive laws, to a dysfunctional employment-based system mired in unworkable backlog, to a lengthy and overly complex asylum process that has been exploited by transnational criminal organizations preying upon the desperate—the Immigration and Nationality Act screams for reform. The failure to do that, I believe as the Chairman has indicated, did lead to an election of someone who promised to engage in mass deportations, which I don’t believe is necessarily the answer to the challenge that we face. Without reform of the law, the executive is now trying to use a section of the law, 212(f), in a way that it was probably never intended and, in the past, the courts have disallowed.
The frustration with our immigration border problem has also led the president to engage in a direct attack on the Constitution. The 14th Amendment says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside,” it’s pretty clear. And there’s going back to the adoption of this amendment, there’s never been a question uh about if you’re born here, you’re an American, but there’s a direct assault on that.
And the idea that this is being done in the effort to preserve public safety I think is belied by the other executive action taken by the president just yesterday, where President Trump pardoned hundreds of felons who violently attacked police officers on January 6th. The decision to release violent criminals into our community makes America less safe.
More than 1,500 criminals were pardoned, including, and I’ll just mention three: Steven Cappuccio, who ripped off Daniel Hodges’ gas mask and beat him in the face while he was stuck in a door, and the attack was so violent that Cappuccio held his phone in his mouth so he could beat Officer Hodges with both hands. And D.J. Rodriguez, who joined a mob attacking Officer Michael Fanone and repeatedly shocked him in the neck with a taser causing him to lose consciousness and suffer a heart attack. And David Dempsey, who climbed over other rioters to get officers where he stomped on at least one officer’s head, beat officers with a flagpole, a crutch, and a broken piece of furniture and sprayed officers’ faces with pepper spray.
Don’t tell me that the motivation for immigration crackdown is public safety, when we release these violent criminals back into our communities.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, I used to teach immigration law, and I well understand the need for reform, but I do hope that we will require executive actions to comply with existing law and turn our attention to the necessary reforms that is really our province here in the United States Congress.
And with that I yield back.
