Legalized, dont expect a scent subsidy and pay every tax imaginable. And in ten years forget about bringing your brothers or sisters because those are gone. Then if that wasnt enough 20,000 more Border Patrol agents. But its worth it what youre doing. What were doing is worth it. I want to extend another hand to the other side of the aisle to say all of those things i dont like them, but im ready to accept them because the alternative is the kind of pain that you hear that young lady. And you have to multiply what they said here millions of times. I want you to think of those millions of tears every day, the pain and devastation that exist in our community. Thank you for the personal testimony and for humanizing this issue for all of us. Thats going to help inform this committee better than any statistics ever can. I thank the gentleman from illinois. The chair recognizes the gentleman from idaho. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mentally greed veem with one thing and that is my mom is the best. I just have a few questions for you. I appreciate both of you testifying today. I want to talk about the realities of immigration, the immigration that were currently living under. Are you familiar with the immigration system back in columbia what its like . Im not. Do you know what would happen if i entered the country illegally today in columbia . No, sir. Do you know what happened to my kids that i would bring into columbia illegally . I would submit to you the treatment would be vastly different than the treatment you and your family received here in the United States. Now since you came before us and i dont like to ask personal questions but youve testified about personal issues. You said youre a u. S. Citizen correct. And your mom cant come here. How is that possible . My mom when i was a sophomore in college she was pulled over for a minor traffic and ion, was then arrested she was then arrested and at some point ice got involved. She was taken to a Detention Center. Unfortunate for us at the time i was not aware of all the Different Things i want to clarify something. She was arrested, she was returned to columbia is that correct . She was taken to a Detention Center and then a couple months later she was. Youre over the age of 21 . Not at the time. But today you are. Why cant you apply for her . I have. Her visa was approved in the u. S. And then she was denied. Do you know why she was denied. She said for leaving the country there is a tenyear ban. Did you file a waiver . My father he has. And they havent approved that yet . No. But there say way for your mom to come if you file a waiver and all those things. And the only point im trying to make im not trying to embarrass you is one of the things were talking about doing here in the house of representatives is removing some of these wavers that are preventing people who have been removed from the United States from coming back legally. And thats something if we could pass in some legislation that would actually help you and your family and its one of the things im trying to accomplish. Now in your testimony you said some things that i found frankly a little bit hard to understand. You said if congress were to adopt an incomplete solution that would provide a path to citizenship but something less for our parents its like saying i can be one of you but my parents can never be. And you said do we want to give our parents a seat at the back of the bus type of legalization . Its highly inaccurate and a little dismissive of our current immigration system. Are you familiar with the hb1 at all . No. H1 i came legally as an b workers in the hightech industry or requires a College Degree and i had children in the yilets, they would become citizens but i would not be necessarily i dont have a right to become a citizen of the United States. I could apply for citizenship but there is nothing that technically says i have to become a citizen. There are millions of people who come to the United States who have children and they still have to leave even though they came here legally. Are you aware of that . I did not know that. It would not be treating your family different than millions of people who come legally to the United States and they dont have a right to stay in the United States. I want to find a way to help the 11 million. I dont have a problem with that. But to come here to congress and say that were putting your parents in the back of the bus when were treating we would treat them the same as anybody else who came here legally who doesnt have a right to citizenship, i think you need to rethink your rhetoric. Because there are people here legally that dont become citizens of the United States and they have children here and have the same values and beliefs and everything that you have. But the law does not allow them to become citizens but yet they can stay here as guest workers in many many industries. I want to find a solution for this problem. I want us to treat everybody fairly. Like i said in my Opening Statement the most important thing for me is the rule of law. Making sure we prevent having this problem again 10 or 20 years from now. Thats not fair to either one of you. If we continue to have these problems then there will be another both of you who is going to be coming here to congress and telling us about their families and how their families need to have a new legal status. I want to help you and help your families but most importantly i want to fix the problems we have so we dont have to have this conversation again. Thank you very much for being here today. The chair will recognize the gentle lady from texas. Let me thank the chairman. And i join with the idea that whenever we make steps toward improving lives and act as legislators we are really doing the right thing because that is the challenge and the charge weve been given in this congress is to fix americas problems. I want to acknowledge my appreciation for all of the witnesses. But i do want to thank in the two ladies because along with your knowledge there are personal stories that are being told. And i cant thank you enough for discussing something so personal. And i think if we can all appreciate each others humanity that what were talking about is not the nuts and bolts of moving checkers on a board or which he is on a which he is board but were talking about human lives. And i believe that we have held human lives in the balance too long. This has been going on too long. D the key to this is not esupposing or predicting disaster and devastation but to look at the senate bill as a marker in terms of attempting to frame the relief this time so that we dont have the idea of someone being able to say this will happen again. Dr. Duke, i want to suppose this question to you. We thank you for representing the Southern Baptist this morning. We were with the evangelicals who have made a commitment and emembraced people of different faith and they believe its time to move on the human aspect of it. As you listened to them you know there say comprehensive pathway to citizenship. There is a crack in the armor when you suggest that youll take the children. I know some years back the Ranking Member and myself worked on the idea of what kind of facilities children are in, young people in r in under the age of majority previously in Detention Centers, it wasnt a pretty scene. It wasnt a pretty scene when you had to separate families. So the human question rose. The idea of Human Trafficking which i know the church has worked on is vast. Ere is a huge problem of Human Trafficking. Do you see the value in taking the comprehensive approach and regular liesing family members, agriculture workers, tech workers, other skill workers that really reigning in what i think our friends have bven speaking of in this hearing . Yes, we believe we do need to address the entire 11 million or so undocumented immigrants here that the family unification is an important aspect of Immigration Reform. The question for our with this particular question on these particular children to us is a little different than their parents simply because the children didnt break any laws. So i dont see how you can address the parents who did break laws of that group differently than you address the other parents of who broke the law. Hat needs to be addressed in a package that you are working on and were hopeful you continue to work on. These particular children just become one part of the entire package that does ultimately ensure us a family unit. So you can support comprehensive Immigration Reform . Yes, we support a full Immigration Reform. Can you talk to me both about the pain of separation from parents or the pain that young people have . Well start with you, the pain that youre experiencing of not having your mother here . . Assume shes in columbia yes, maam. Its very difficult. Its the Little Things that add up, birth days, celebrations, graduations, weddings, all sorts of things that become harder and harder. Its having to see my sister who is unable to visit her suffer and see that the only way that she can interact with my mom is through a computer camera. So its incredibly difficult. As i said in my testimony it affected me while i was in school. I had to reach out to my college of liberal arts to my counselors and let them know what was going on because i could not concentrate. I was a College Undergrad student trying to understand Immigration Law which is just about impossible, filing paperwork. Its very difficult. I can only imagine what it would be to not have my parents with me. My younger brothers yeah, it would be devastating. And the pain in the community exists. We have several families in the state of arkansas that are battling that. And i can only imagine what parents would feel like leaving their u. S. Sid children and going back to a place they havent been to in a long time. We have another case where there are two uzz citizen and their parent is in a Detention Center waiting to be deported. I can see the pain in her eyes that she has whenever she talks to me about her dad and how much she misses him. So the thought of not being there is terrifying to me. Thank you. Im yielding back and saying that Congress Duty is to fix these problems even if they are pretty tough. The chair will recognize the gent from california. I would ask unanimous con stheant we make a part of the record statements from the congressional Asian Pacific caucus, the campaign for children, the American Civil Liberties union, the Asian Americans advancing justice, he antidefamation league. A poll from last week from the fwal lop organization on immigration as even by americans. Without objection. The gentleman from nevada. Thank you mr. Chairman. I want to associate myself with the remarks of my colleague from texas although i wish mr. Guter rass was still here. I wanted to talk to him about teaching people to drive. Since hes not well skip that part. During the course of this hearing weve heard i dont want my parent left behind, so this doesnt happen again. The package comprehensive and everybody has concentrated on what the problem is now and rightfully so. But we dont have that luxury of just concentrating on that. Your circumstances have been well represented and ill tell you quite frankly i personally believe the hardest thing for anybody to do is go back to the people they represent and say we did nothing. Does anybody on the panel think that what is going on now is okay and nothing status quo is okay . Record should reflect nobody answered in the affirmative. So let me ask you this i want to ask you to branch out beyond your personal circumstances, wanting your parents together and all that stuff which is understandable and human nature. What was do you have any knowledge of what the thought process was when your mom said you know what, im going there and im staying and im taking my twoyearold the age doesnt really matter. And im asking the question in the context of because one of e toughest things is justify in 1986 they dealt with it. In 2013 were going to deal with it hopefully. So now were 10 or 15 years down the road. How do you make sure nobody comes here 10 or 15 years from now and has to silt where you are. What is the piece and with all due respect the border is in texas to california. There is a gulf and a few coasts. What is your thought of how do you make sure this doesnt happen again once we deal with this group . Any suggests . I think thats your responsibility. You all hold the answer to what were going through. When you come and say i want a comprehensive thing but you cant say i have nothing to give you on the other part. I mean you can but then you risk whatever we come up with which i think would scare the heck out of you. To answer the first part of that question, columbia in the 1980s and 1990s was a very scary place to be so my parents did what i think any parent would do is they tried to give us every opportunity and they wanted to get us out of there because it was just so dangerous. So to now address the second part of your question, its very difficult to say how you ix this problem. But i know that you guys are incredibly talented and you may think that say copout but i think that sitting down and talking this out you can figure it out. Thank you for acknowledging that and the folks on the south side of the building should have a shot at that as well as the folks from the north side of the building. Any thoughts . What have other countries done . What do you do so you dont keep turning the wheel and having new groups that are disenfranchised because our Current System obviously isnt working . Im not involved in a lot of these different areas of work in my organization but you may be aware weve published extenive analysis of border systems. We have done work looking at how other countries are handling these issues also. Weve done a great deal of analysis. Briefly can you summarize. You know there are no answers thank you unanimous so far. Thanks for your question. It is a great question how do we never come back here again. There will probably always be some people here illegally. We will probably never get 100 security. The workplace is a draw. If you can put in some sort of e verify that certainly will deal with a lot of it. We need a better way to track visas as well so folks arent overstaying their visas. Its offensive folks who gave their word they would only be here a certain amount of time have overstayed their visas so you should address that as well and of course Border Security would help as well. Thank you very much. The chair will now recognize myself. I never even thought about trying to take new testament but several colleagues have made reference to the bible and a couple named joseph and mary immigrated to egypt when herod was looking for their son. In the gospel of matthew. I want to ask you this because this vexes me from an equity or fairness standpoint. I never understood why god preferred e saw over jacob or why they killed the fatted calf for the prodigal son when the other did it exactly right. He didnt squander his fortune. He did exactly what his father asked him to do. Imagine a couple in columbia with a daughter as bright and beautiful as this young lady. And they did it the way we asked them to do it. What are the equities of jumping anyone ahead of them in line . Thanks for the question. It is a tough question and your question is about how to understand those particular situations in the bible are still being debated and will be until the lord returns im sure. So youre not alone in trying to sort through some of those things. I think the really tiss is we have a situation nobody wants but its a real situation were dealing with. We have 11 Million People here. We cannot continue them to live in the circumstances they are living in. Its not right for them or in our countrys best interest so we theed to address that. If were going to secure the border were going to trap 11 Million People here. We need to not consign them to lives of poverty and their children and their children after them. So its more of a tract cal question then what you do with folks in line trying to get here when you already have 11 million here. You could say you have 11 million here and those other folks at least they are making a living wherever they are. At least they have some degree of support wherever they are rather than us trying to drive these other folks out of here. We have to address this situation. We cant ignore it and act as though it doesnt exist. When we talk about getting permanent legal status or citizenship they should get at the end of the line for everybody who already has their paperwork in. It should go in and be active after all of these other folk who is have already applied in that process. Some folks will be a long time in that pro says unless you want to speed up how quickly we can process people for citizenship. I think all of the witnesses have made tronchese 11 million. I hear it everywhere i go as if its a homm genius group and we know its not. You made reference several times to the 11 million. Would you agree with me that those members of the 11 million who cant pass a background check shouldnt be on a path to anything other than deportation . Maybe the people that dont pass a background check but i believe there should be a pathway for the majority of the 11 million. Thats different than what you said earlier. My point is all 11 million cant pass any background check. All 11 million from peachers to members of congress cant pass a background check so why persist with a talking point of 11 million when we know thats disingenuous. All 11 million dont want to be u. S. Citizens. All 11 million cant pass a background check. If you son seed that then we get to the details of what the background check is going to look like. For instance if you have a conviction for Domestic Violence shoul