Higgins Opens Hearing on Enhancing Federal, State, and Local Immigration Law Enforcement Efforts Against Criminal Illegal Aliens

WASHINGTON—Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement Chairman Clay Higgins (R-La.) delivered opening remarks at a subcommittee hearing titled “Enhancing Federal, State, and Local Coordination in the Fight Against Criminal Illegal Aliens.”In his opening statement, Subcommittee Chairman Higgins highlighted the need for coordination between federal immigration authorities and local law enforcement to bring criminal, illegal aliens to justice and make our communities safer. He continued by calling out the violent foreign gangs operating in within the United States and emphasized that Congress will find ways to enable law enforcement to bring transnational criminal organizations, the gangs, the cartels, and all criminal illegal aliens to justice and remove them.

Below are Subcommittee Chairman Higgins’ remarks as prepared for delivery.

Welcome to the first meeting of the Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement.

Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any time.

I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement.

As a military and civilian law enforcement officer since 1989, it is my great pleasure to chair this new Subcommittee that will examine issues related to homeland security, criminal justice, federal law and regulatory enforcement, and border security and immigration enforcement.

Before I continue, I want to recognize my colleague from across the aisle, Ranking Member Summer Lee from the great state of Pennsylvania.

I look forward to working with you to make the lives of all Americans better.

I would also like to welcome all our Subcommittee members; I look forward to working with each and every one of you.

The work of this Subcommittee is essential. In recent years, we have seen the weaponization of our justice system, lawlessness in our cities, and an open border that has allowed illegal drugs and dangerous gangs into our country with deadly results.

Throughout this Congress, we will tackle these issues and ensure President Trump has all the tools and resources to address rampant crime.

This Subcommittee will also work to ensure our men and women in law enforcement are properly supported and the American people have a justice system that works for them, not against them.

Today, we will examine the dangers posed by criminal illegal aliens, especially those who belong to cartels, and how coordination between federal immigration authorities and local law enforcement can bring criminal, illegal aliens to justice and make our communities safer.

During the last 4 years, members of transnational criminal organizations were able to illegally enter and remain in our country and terrorize our cities and towns without consequences.

These gangs and cartels are responsible for bringing a significant amount of illegal fentanyl into the country, resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

These criminal organizations plagued our communities with crime, violence, and fear.

Our state and local law enforcement officers were often left to deal with the previous administration’s failed border policies, without assistance from federal counterparts.

As we heard last week, some of those failed border policies are still being supported by sanctuary city mayors.

The previous administration effectively dismantled the 287(g) program,  leaving state and local law enforcement agencies—once active participants—without any training or support from ICE.

But President Trump won’t stand for that.

President Trump is using the 287(g) program, which Sheriff Gualtieri and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office participate in, to increase coordination between local law enforcement and ICE.

President Trump has actually expanded the 287(g) Program, and since then, all sixty-seven sheriff-run jails and ten county-run jails in the state of Florida have entered into an agreement with ICE to participate in the program.

This is just one example of the swift action President Trump has taken since returning to office to secure our borders, to go after the cartels and gangs, and most importantly, to protect Americans by ensuring our nation’s law enforcement agencies can work together to apprehend and remove criminal illegal aliens.

For the last 4 years, frontline law enforcement professionals at the local, state, and federal level who have sworn to protect our communities and maintain our sovereignty at the southern border have been forced to endure unprecedented weakness from their own executive branch, policies so misguided, law enforcement witnessed with horror as longstanding tradition of constant battle against cartel trafficking of human beings and deadly drugs was replaced by complicit allowance of trafficking, even corroborated trafficking of human beings.

Thanks be to God and the American people, those policies ended abruptly on January 20th.

Today, we are going to continue to call out the violent foreign gangs operating in our country and discover ways to enable law enforcement to bring transnational criminal organizations, the gangs, the cartels, and all criminal illegal aliens to justice and remove them from the United States.

I look forward to hearing from all our witnesses today and learning what more can be done to ensure our borders are secure, criminal illegal aliens are apprehended and removed, and transnational criminal organizations are stopped in their tracks. I yield to Ranking Member Lee for her opening statement.