(The Center Square) – Contrasting concerns around the impacts of U.S. immigration policy were on display Tuesday at the nation’s capital.
Separate hearings in Congress addressed issues around immigration policy with an incoming Trump administration.
Acknowledging there are 13 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, held a Judiciary Committee hearing focused on what Democrats said is a threat from President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation policies.
“It was an undocumented worker who was watching your grandchild this morning at the day care center, an undocumented worker who walked carefully with your mother back to her room after breakfast so she didn’t fall down,” Durbin said. “It was an undocumented worker with that leaf blower in your front yard over the weekend.”
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, tussled with a Democrat witness testifying that Trump’s mass deportation plan would hurt the economy.
“I think that we want to pass a path to citizenship so we can have a level and fair playing field for every American,” American Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said.
“Why would you want to drive down the wages of millions of working Americans who can’t get those jobs in construction, agriculture and hospitality because illegal immigrants are getting them,” Hawley asked.
Durbin said he’s ready to meet with Trump, who told Meet the Press Sunday he’s open to a path for people who long ago were brought as children across the border illegally. But, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, who’s worked on immigration reform, said that’s not possible without border security.
“Because if we don’t secure the border, I can’t get a path to citizenship for the population,” Tillis said.
In the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-New York, said an open border hurts public safety.
“Instead of supporting suspected criminals endangering our nation’s police officers, we should be securing the southwest border, enforcing our nation’s laws and making our police officers’ jobs easier, not more difficult,” D’Esposito, chair of the committee, said.
U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-Louisiana, criticized Trump’s deportation plan.
“No real solution, no viable path forward, just chaos,” Carter said. “Today’s hearing should have been focused on protecting our nation from the increasing threat of natural disasters.”
Trump border czar Tom Homan, in Chicago on Monday night, said anyone, including elected officials, found harboring illegal aliens will be prosecuted.
“If your Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help … to step aside,” CBS Chicago reported Homan told a crowd. “But if he impedes us, if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien, I will prosecute him.”
At a ribbon-cutting event for a new homeless shelter in Chicago on Monday, Mayor Brandon Johnson said there will be non-citizens housed.
“The whole purpose of the one-shelter system is to ensure that we are treating every single human being with dignity,” Johnson said. “We took a crisis, a crisis that was international and global both with homelessness as well as global population shift, we have managed that crisis and then we have built an entire system around them.”
