Thank you all for swrojoining u today. The subcommittee will come to order. The chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. The decision to deport children with critical illnesses, a decision that was recently reversed following public outrage and pressure from the subcommittee. I will now recognize myself for five minutes to give an Opening Statement then turn to the Ranking Member. We are here to get to the bottom of the administrations mysterious campaign to deport critically ill children and their families. It appears that this policy has thankfully been reversed. They rose up in an outcry at the cold humanity on display. Im going to treat this hearing not only as an honor to Elijah Cummings, but as a hearing in direct pursuit of a policy objective that was close to his heart. The threatened deportation of Sick Children was such an outrage the to chairman cummings that his last official act before his death was to issue subpoenas to hold the administration to his account. On wednesday in the waning hours of his life through all his pain and difficulty, chairman cummings recognized the indelible stain that this policy would leave on our nation and he made holding the government accountable his final official act and we now have a sacred obligation to follow through on his subpoenas to make sure we defend some of the most Vulnerable People on the planet. Sick children who has come as strangers to our land to seek medical assistance. So to our witnesses today, i want to be clear, this subcommittee intended to follow through on chairman cummings promise to unearth the truth behind this policy and his desire to ensure the policy is reversed and that our government treats people in this category with the dignity they zverev. Not only do we owe that to our late beloved chairman, but we owe it to maria, to jonathan sanchez, to serena and all of the immigrants whose health and lives were threatened by the policy implemented by uscis. Uscis must first explain the current policy on deferred action. It cant keep the process shrouded in secrecy while these kids wait to hear their fate. If we could go to the slide. On september 18th, the deputy of Homeland Security ordered the acting director, mr. Kuch nelly, whos with us here today, to quote ensure that effective immediately, uscis resumes its consideration of nondeferred requests on a case by case basis. It is unclear whether they have actually granted relief the anyone since reversing course. He further ordered them to quote ensure that the procedure for considering and responding to deferred action requests is consistent and that discretionary deferred action is granted only based on compelling facts and circumstances. What does this mean . What is the problem that uscis is try iing to fix . What changings are being considered . Will outside stake holders be consulted . We want to have maximum transparency to ensure that ucsis is not imposing unreasonable requirements on immigrants who deserve our attention and mercy. In the meantime, they should explain what will happen to people whose prior deferrals have expired while their renewals are still under review. Weve heard from the family of a 12yearold boy with an incurable condition that could cause him to bleed to death if not treated correctly. Both of his parents applied in march to renew their deferrals, but have been waiting for months without any decision at all. His fathers deterribferral expn august. His mothers in january. Without a deferral, neither parent would be authorized to stay or work in the United States threatening their able thety to work and care for their sick son. So what do they do while agency is trying to decide how to reinstate deferred action . How many more people are stuck in this kind of limbo and what will we do to protect them . We want basic answers to these questions and we come here not in any kind of gotcha spirit, we just want to deal with a serious problem that was brought to our committee. The on yoing confusion regarding deferred action reflects the same kind of chaos that apparently produced this policy in the first place and that prompted our last hear iing. And for which the administration i hope today will provide us answers. What little weve been able to learn about how u this policy came to to be indicates it was undertaken in haste without effort to ascertain what its health and life threatening affects would be on the people affected. At our hearing in september, we heard the compelling stories of people who were directly harmed by the policy. Isabel, a 24yearold woman suffering from a rare disease, testified that deportation would be quote a death sentence for me. She told us, i want to live. Im a human being with hopes and dreams in my life. Jonathan sanchez, a 16yearold suffering from Cystic Fibrosis, a disease that affects people in my family. Jonathan sanchez told us that upon learning he was facing deportation, he broke down in tears pleading quote, i do not want to die. I dont want to die. If i go back to honduras now, i will die. In his words, quote, its incredibly unfair to kick out sick kids who were in the hospital or at home taking treatments and who are just trying to have better tu opportunities to live. The its obvious from the testimony they did not realize what the real world implications of its policy would be or it knew and decided to go ahead. Either reality i think would be damning but the effects on maria and jonathan would be foreseeable if they sought Public Feedback before institute ing new policy. According to uscis, it failed to consult a single external stake hold er before jeopardizing these families. Making mattersers worse, they did not issue any public announcement about the policy or provide any guidance to people in maria and jonathans situation or any of the critically ill children and their families about what would come next. Why not . Is it their practice to implement policy shifts like this without providing Public Notice . Sadly, the threatened deportation of sick kids is just one example of this administrations mistreatment of immigrant children. It is not the only one. Uscic has engaged in a pattern of developing policies that endanger children. Since you took office, uscis has eliminated automatic citizenship for children of u. S. Soldiers introduced new barriers for immigrant kids fleeing Domestic Abuse in their home countries and rolled out a rule that has scared many families from health and nutrition services. Each of these acts an affront to chairman cummings philosophy that children are the living message that we send forward to a future we will never see. The last hearing he attended was our september 11th on this issue. Treating children with dignity was so important to him that he made a point to come down from baltimore despite his advanced d failing health. At that hearing, elijah said quote, i really do think we are in a moral situation. People are striving to live. They are trying to breathe the air of our country. Theyre trying to be better. Theyre trying to be healthy. Chairman cummings, who was striving to live at that moment, trying to be healthy. Wanted these children to have the same access to medical treatment thhe did. We will honor the chairmans memory and the humanity of all of those seeking deferred action by conducting rigorous oversight and working to guarantee that this Administration Treats Immigrants with the dignity they zver deserve. I welcome todays witnesses. Were delighted that you came today. But we want to make sure that we see no further bureaucratic stone walling and confusion on these matters. We want clarity. Were hear for answers and we will not stop until we get them. We thank you for coming and now im delighted to recognize the distinguished Ranking Member of our committee, mr. Roy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for coming up here and visiting with us today. I will reiterate what i said in the hearing last week that obviously our continued prayers are with the family of chairman cummings and with his staff. We obviously had a great event here in the capitol last week and honored to participate in that and we will continue to move forward in this committee. Carrying forward the chairmans legacy and wanting to do whats right. And to be better. Right . I want to say one thing and it will not surprise the chairman that i raise this issue, that currently, there are two depositions going on and theres depositions are, or at least two are scheduled today. One i think is going on now. In another part of the capitol and its imb possible for me possible for me to be in two places at once so im sitting here and i want to carry out my duties to do that and im unable to go hear that and im unable to easily see crytranscripts. Its not easy to catch up on what im doing. I dont think thats the way to carry out things. Theres going to be a vote tomorrow on this process sh, but i would suggest this is part of the problem b in real time. So anybody watching this, this is the problem with this current broken process. Here im sitting, there are few members here, at least on our side. I would note my prayers and wishes to mr. Heist whose father pennsylvanassed away yesterday, dont think this is the way we should be conducting those kinds of inquiries. Today, we have a hearing titled the administrations decision to deport critically ill children and their families. I would take issue with that title. I dont believe thats what the administration was seeking to do. I think that were talking about a process change and that we tugt get ought to get to that. This is a topic that involves deferred action requests for people not lawfully present seeking to stay for sympathetic reasons. Its not the first. Weve had the hearing on 9 11, but to be clear, deferred action is not a policeman. Deferred action is a decision, right . A decision and a judgment call reserved for those with prosecutorial powers and we ought to treat it that way then have a discussion about policy changes if there are any to be had for anybody whos here and overstayed a visa and is in a situation that the chairman described. Were just tedealing with polic change that would have taken uscis and has no Real Authority to carry out if i understand it correctly then use Decision Making to those that have that power. They announced they would evaluate pending claims subject to policy change. They sent a letter to the committee a day before the hearing noting that individuals who sent requests after august 7th were not under imminent threat of removal. To my understanding, none of the deferred individuals have been targeted for deportation and on a letter September September 19th, its returning to the deferred action process in place on august 6th. So nobodys being treated any better or worse than they were on august 6 th. Its how to have the right policy. We have sympathy for anyone whos sick, but we need real solutions. No one here or in the administration wants anyone to not be able to get treatment or be treated unfairly or live in uncertainty, but we have deal with the real world where we have people here who lose status and we have to figure out what to do with that. Perpetuating a stay here over your visa sand beg for intermittent deferrals that are not rooted in law and seek action and leave them in additional limbo, thats not a good policy. Yet thats the existing policy. If Congress Wants a different visa class or otherwise to solve the problem, it should act. This is something i beat the drum on many issues. Congress wants to solve problems, sh they should act. They have the problem the to power policies. We should all seek a system rooted in sound policy. I remind my democratic colleagues this was at the root of the decision regarding the daca class and current debate on the class with respect to approving status for people who overstay their existing visas, we have deferred action which is prosecutori prosecutorial discretion. We cant give a status to a group of people to a name of diskrex. This hearing involves a situation that affects roughly 900 people and its at the status joe an ante. But Border Patrol agents along the southern border encountered a Million People trying to enter the country illegally. A million. Today, were talk iing about 90. But that number, the specific number is 977,509. With plus inadmissibles, there were 1. 148 Enforcement Actions by cvp. Were talking about 900 versus 851,000 that were talking about here in apprehensions. Were not talking about the 224 pounds of fentanyl seized crossing our southern border this last fiscal year. In one little sugar packet of fentanyl would kill everyone in this room. Were not having a hearing about the weapons intercepted. Up from last year. The fact that they apprehended 12 different gang members. There are 576,000 immigrant fugitives. 576,000. Over half a Million People who have been given a final order of removal by a judge and theyre still wandering around the United States. According to i. C. E. , theyve seen a double digit drop due personnel and resources theyve had to deploy to the border. This is where we have real problems. Our border is porous and vulnerable to crimes by cartels and traffickers who are taking advantage of migrants. They abuse children as problem bs for asylum. There were 473,000 family units this year. The highest on record. We could discus 5,400 cases of fraud from the family units and children who were being exploited to come to the United States. Lets talk about those migrants being abused today on the journey through mexico. We have 50,000 apprehensions in september. 50,000. Were talk iing about the numbe being down. Why . Because they were down from over 100,000 in may. Yet the reality whats happening right now on the board rer today but were not having hearings on that. Were having a hearing on something that has no discernible difference from where it was on august 6th. I understand the skrn of the chairman about the questions about the policies, but were talk iing about something that been largely addressed with respect to the concern the majority has and if we want to have a conversation about a policy, sit around a round table and figure out what we can do to have legislation that might have concerns, but lets talk about the other things we can do. Fixing asylum. Catch and release flores. Tvpra. We could fix these on one piece of paper in one day if we had the will to do it i. We could fund the i. C. E. And Border Patrol properly. The level that president obama asked for. Upwards of a billion dollars that he asked for to deal with the unaccompanied alien children in 2014 in 2015 yet we only got 250 billion for i. C. E. And that was constrained and not been able to use. This issue affects 900 people for whom we have great sympathy, but on an average day this year, that is three times less than the total number crossing during one Border Patrol shift. Think about that. One Border Patrol shift. Todays cvp apprehends roughly a day. In may, it was 5,000. If the chairman wants address the facts these defeshl rs not programs and prosecutorial discretion, lets discuss that and figure out a system that will work and that we can Work Together to try to figure that out but in the context of our very, very broken system and Border Security. Thank you. Thank you for your thoughtful remarks and as always, im very eager to work with you and all of our colleagues on comprehensive immigration reform, but you correctly del delineate what the object of todays hearing is which is to focus on this question and were going to do it and i think im hopeful well get the answers we need and we can move on to work on other stuff. There are several memberses of the committee who have come today both out of their interest in the subject, but also in a tribute to chairman cummings so without objection, i would wave them on. Mr. Ruda, cooper and desona are are members of the broader committee joining us on the subcommittee including miss kelly and mr. Gomez who have arooufed over here and also thank you mr. White for telling us about mr. Heiss father. I was not aware of that. Our prayers and thoughts go out to them. It seems like were just going to too many funerals these days. Were sending him the strength and encouragement. With that, toipt welcome our witnesses today. Ken, the acting director of u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at Homeland Security. Welcome. And matthew, the acting director of the u. S. Immigration and customs. If the witnesses would kindly rise and raid their right hands, i will swear you in. Do you swear the testimony youre about to give is the truth so help you god . Then let the record show the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. You may be seated. Please speak directly into the microphone. Any written statements you brought or decide to provide will be made. Youre recognized to give an oral presentation of your testimony. Good morning. I want to express my condolences on the passing of chairman couple uings and i appreciate his dedication to representing the people of marylands seventh district for 23 years. Im the acting director of United States citizenship and Immigration Services. Uscis administers the u. Nited states lawful immigration system. The mission is to safeguard the system by fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while americans, securing the homeland and honoring our values. I can see, i can tell you im extremely proud of the work and frofsalism i see every day by the employees and service to america. In 2019, just ended, uscis achief chiefed many of President Trumps xwoels to make our system work better. Weve tirelessly worked with our fell le dhs components to address President Trumps call to address the crisis at our southern border. Weve taken significant steps to mitigate the loopholes in our asylum system particularly in the absence of congressional action. Combatting fr