Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee highlighted Tuesday the costs and human toll of President-elect Donald Trump’s stated plans to deport all undocumented immigrants, while Republicans sought to limit some of those concerns.
Chair Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said in his opening remarks the estimated 13 million undocumented immigrants in the United States fill every sector of American society.
“It was an undocumented worker who was watching your grandchild this morning at the daycare 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.”
Democrats held the hearing as a kind of last stand for their views on immigration in the waning days of their majority in the Senate. They invited among their witnesses one of the undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. as children and raised and educated here, yet face uncertain futures.
Foday Turay, an assistant district attorney at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, said during his opening statement the mass deportations currently planned would be devastating if they include immigrants like him.
“Mass deportation hurts all of us, our family, our community and our society,” Turay said. “We owe it to ourselves and to our country to reject mass deportation and look for a solution for Dreamers whose lives have become deeply rooted in the country and strengthen our borders.”
Durbin referenced a recent interview Trump gave on “Meet the Press,” when he said he’d be open to a legislative solution for the Dreamers, as among the “positive things” coming from the president-elect.
“He really challenged us on the Democratic side to work with him when he came to the Dreamers,” Durbin said. “I accept the challenge. Name the time and place, Mr. President. I’ll be there.”
Republicans on the committee, for their part, signaled an openness to working with Democrats on the solution for the Dreamers, although it appears it would have to be a component of a larger immigration scheme.
Sen. Lindsey Graham R-S.C., suggested he’d be open to solution that would include them: “As to the Dreamers, hopefully we can find a solution to that problem.”
“I think President Trump is pretty clear about DACA, but what do we tell the kids who’ve been brought here in the last year who are 7 years old?” Graham added. “Do you ever break this chain? So I’m hoping, Mr. Chairman, that once we regain control of our border and try to shut down the poisoning of America, we can have a logical, rational discussion about Dreamers and others.”
“But until we control that border, until we get control over the crime coming into this country, into the poisoning of America, that discussion cannot happen,” Graham said.
Graham said Republicans are preparing a “transformative” border security funding bill, which by some reported estimates may total as much as $85 billion.
Republicans at the hearing seemed to downplay the scope of the deportation effort, making the case that immigrants convicted of crimes should be a priority for removal, as well as undocumented immigrants who had received their final deportation orders after having their cases adjudicated in immigration court.
The senators heard one estimate that the cost of Trump’s deportation plan could be as high as an annual cost of $88 billion, for the hiring and infrastructure needed to deport 1 million people a year, and a mass deportation campaign would lead to a loss in total GDP of 4.2 to 6.8 percent at minimum, as much as the Great Recession.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, delivered those numbers to the committee as part of his testimony urging Congress to advance legislation creating pathways to citizenship instead of mass deportation.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he is “part of a group of people here who … believes there should be a path for Dreamers,” but that advocates such as Reichlin-Melnick were personally responsible for the failure of Congress to enact protections.
“You cause people to go into their corners and get nothing done,” Tillis said. “That is why Chair Durbin has not been able to fulfill the promise on Dreamers every single year he’s tried for the last 20 because people like you make it impossible to have a — let me finish, and then I’ll let you speak, as long as the chair wants to — have a rational discussion about it, because if we don’t secure the border, I can’t get a path to citizenship for the DACA population.”
Tillis’ time expired and he exited the committee hearing before Reichlin-Melnick had a chance to respond. After the hearing, Reichlin-Melnick said among the things he would like to say in response to Tillis was the importance of finding a solution that enables a “rising tide to lift all boats.”
“If the choice is rupture the social fabric by deporting 13 million people or work to build greater prosperity, that’s what we should be doing,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
Some Democrats on the committee made comments seeking common ground, asserting the 2013 immigration reform measure or the bipartisan border bill currently pending before Congress would be good starting points. Neither have any serious prospects with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress. The bipartisan border bill has been declared dead even by its supporters.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., brought up the bipartisan legislation, which was supported by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., as a legislative solution for immigration that should be revisited.
“Hopefully that can be at least a starting point for discussing it, even though it didn’t go anywhere last year,” Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar pointed to proposals on “path to citizenship for Dreamers, on doing something for the temporary status people, on looking at people who have not committed crimes and what we can do to make sure our workforce is strong, I think there is a path here and I’m just continuing to focus on where we can go.”
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