(The Center Square) – Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee sparred over President Donald Trump’s immigration policies during a hearing to examine the visa process Wednesday.
Democrats blasted the Trump administration for “torturing our laws and trampling our constitution,” while Republicans fired back by citing cases of Americans who were killed by undocumented immigrants.
Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., accused Trump of initiating a “war on immigrants” since taking office in January. Raskin criticized Trump’s immigration approach, saying that the president has reformed the immigration system for his own political gain.
“President Trump has turned our visa system into a terrain of caprice and selective punishment he can wield against his chosen political enemies and use to demonize and scapegoat immigrants,” Raskin said.
Trump campaigned all last year on shutting down the U.S. border with Mexico and deporting violent criminal noncitizens. It was an issue most voters agreed with him and helped him win the election.
Under President Joe Biden’s administration, more than 14 million noncitizens entered the country illegally, The Center Square reported.
But Democrats also argued that the Trump administration’s immigration policies are a gateway to opposing all forms of immigration, including legal pathways.
“It cements us in the eyes of the world as a vindictive, isolationist and increasingly undependable and authoritarian country,” Raskin said.
Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., defended the president’s reforms since taking office, arguing that these policies are intended to continue to support legal ways to immigration but hone in on rooting out “bad actors” who wish to commit immigration fraud.
“America has the most generous legal immigration system in the world,” McClintock said.
Republicans redirected criticism to Biden, saying that the Biden administration’s border policies led to a rise in violent crimes in the U.S. specifically committed by noncitizens in the U.S. illegally.
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, cited the case of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted and killed by two undocumented immigrants in Houston, Texas.
“She’s one of dozens, hundreds, thousands of examples of Americans who are dead because of policies that were advocated for by the Biden administration,” Roy said.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., highlighted examples of crimes in his district, including an instance in which a father of three was killed in a car crash after a foreign national was driving recklessly while under the influence.
Witness Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for Economic and Social Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, rebutted Republicans’ arguments, saying these cases should not be taken as representative of the immigrant population as a whole.
“Every death and every murder is a tragedy, and those individual criminals should be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Nowrasteh said. “But that is not a reason to punish other people who are not criminals.”
