Republican senators defended President-elect Donald Trump’s deportation plan, despite the economic impacts and impacts on families, including more than five million American children.
Senators Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), John Kennedy (Louisiana), Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Josh Hawley (Missouri) and Ted Cruz (Texas), emphasized their position on immigration and the crime in the United States, including drug trafficking, without taking into consideration the economic benefits that immigrants, even undocumented, bring to the country.
“We believe the only way to control the border is for deportations to begin soon,” Graham said. “If there are no exits, the entries will continue.”
Graham even questioned Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow of the American Immigration Council, for defending dignified treatment of immigrants, highlighting their contributions to the economy and rejecting that they are the cause of crime in the United States.
“Do you believe that everyone who is not a criminal can come to the United States?” Senator Graham launched.
“No,” the immigration expert responded.
“How many people who are not criminals want to come to the United States? “Probably hundreds of millions,” he added.
Graham indicated that the amnesty for undocumented immigrants is a way to “encourage” others to enter the country.
“So what I want to say is that… we are going to deport them after they have spent the whole day in court, they will face a final order of deportation,” he said.
Previously Reichlin-Melnick highlighted that mass deportations would affect “parents, spouses, partners, brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren, and loved ones and friends of millions” of Americans.
“Five million U.S. citizen children have at least one undocumented parent in an average public school classroom of 25 children, at least two have an undocumented immigrant parent at risk of deportation as President-elect Trump talks about targeting criminals, more than 90% have no previous criminal record,” he noted.
drug trafficking
Senator Kennedy accused President Joe Biden’s government of maintaining an “open borders” policy.
Republicans, like Graham, insisted on comparing immigration to drug trafficking.
Democratic Senator Alex Padilla (California) cited that 80% of people sentenced for fentanyl trafficking are Americans.
“We must address the importation [de fentanilo]but if we are going to do it thoughtfully and seriously, let’s look at what the Customs and Border Protection Agency tells us: 80% of the people who are prosecuted and convicted for bringing into this country [fentanilo] They are citizens of the United States,” Padilla recalled.
Republican Tillis also questioned critics of President-elect Trump and his deportation plan, pointing out that no one is “demining” former President Barack Obama for deporting millions of people.
Crime and the use of the Army
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat Dick Durbin (Illinois), led the hearing to which Reichlin-Melnick was invited; General Randy Manner; Andrew R. Arthur, Resident Fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies; Patty Morin, of Aberdeen, Maryland, whose daughter, Rachel, was murdered by an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record, and Foday Turay, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) ‘Dreamer’ who is a deputy district attorney at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.
Faced with the insistence of Republicans to connect crime with immigration, Turay was questioned by Senator Durbin about his personal history as an undocumented person: his wife is American, his son too, while he is protected with DACA.
He also made reference to the case of Rachel, Morin’s daughter, whose murderer is undocumented. “Is this the type of person you would go after?” Durbin said. “Yes,” Turay said.
General Manner was questioned by Senator Kennedy about his opinion on the MAGA movement, but the general responded that he had not been invited to the hearing to discuss his personal political position, but rather the feasibility of using the National Guard in mass deportation processes. , as President-elect Trump has promised.
“Immigration law enforcement is the responsibility of federal law enforcement agencies,” Manner said, adding that the Army is not trained for deportations.
Reichlin-Melnick previously said – as also revealed by the organization she works for – that Trump’s deportation plan, taking into account two million immigrants, would cost more than $300 billion.