Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 2 years ago
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) discussed the suspect in the killing of Laken Riley.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript


Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Transcript
00:00to go on to your own schedule from here, but you're always welcome and thank you very much
00:05for your presentation.
00:06At this point, I recognize Senator Graham for an opening statement.
00:10Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:11I want to talk about what I brought up here yesterday.
00:16After weeks of effort, we finally found out the situation with Mr. Ibarra, who's facing
00:22charges for murder in Georgia.
00:26This man is a case study of what's wrong with our immigration system.
00:31In terms of legislation, you don't need any legislation to fix the problem related to
00:36Mr. Ibarra.
00:38He was apprehended in September 2022.
00:41He lived in Venezuela, then he went to Ecuador illegally and resided there.
00:45He came across the U.S. border.
00:47We got a hold of him.
00:48We apprehended him, and he was paroled.
00:53Why was he paroled?
00:55Lack of detention capacity.
00:58The law is clear.
01:00You cannot parole someone because you don't have space.
01:04The only way you're allowed to be paroled in the United States is to meet two criteria
01:10of a statute.
01:11First, the stuff about ... Do you have my testimony with the examination of Maricus?
01:20I brought this up in November.
01:23Maricus was appearing for the Appropriations Committee, and he said yesterday he didn't
01:30know why Mr. Ibarra was paroled.
01:32It's in your own file.
01:35How could you testify before the country, you didn't know how the guy got into the country,
01:39when at literally almost the same moment, I'm giving you a document that said he was
01:44admitted into the country because lack of capacity in El Paso.
01:49The bottom line here is when I asked him in February about whether or not you're letting
01:56people into the country violating the statute, he says, do you do a case-by-case analysis?
02:04Senator, we comply with the law.
02:07There's a file for all 240,000 where somebody determined they must meet these two criteria,
02:13urgent humanitarian need or significant public benefit.
02:17There's an individual determination made Maricus on all 220,000, and I can see that, yes, sir.
02:25There was no individual analysis done by the man charged with killing Lakin Riley.
02:32Nobody determined whether or not he has a unique benefit to our country or that he's
02:38suffering from a humanitarian crisis in his family or with some loved one, allowing him
02:45to be paroled.
02:46He was paroled because we didn't have any place to put him, and he wound up committing
02:53a crime in New York, and now he's charged with murder.
02:59If this is not Exhibit A of a broken immigration system, what would be?
03:05And the day that I give this committee why he was paroled from his own file, the same
03:13day the Homeland Security Secretary testifies that he doesn't know why he was paroled.
03:21We're going to have an impeachment trial of Maricus, in theory, but not in practice.
03:26We're not going to get any of this information.
03:29I would like to be able to tell the public that when he talked to me in November, Mr.
03:35Maricus, about the system, that what he said is not true.
03:41He was saying there was an individual analysis consistent with the law.
03:46The law does not allow parole because you don't have a place to put somebody.
03:51We're not going to have that trial because you don't want to hear about why he was impeached.
03:57You don't want to have a discussion as to whether or not he has broken his duty to protect
04:02America.
04:04So all I can say, this is not going away.
04:07The trial may go away.
04:09You may deep-six this thing in about three hours, but the issue's not going to go away.
04:14We're going to tell the American people until we run out of breath that the system in place
04:20is broken.
04:21It leads to results like in Georgia, and it needs to stop.
04:26And the person who created the problem is Joe Biden.
04:29He's the person who needs to fix it.
04:31And finally, as to parole.
04:33This system is supposed to be an individual case-by-case analysis.
04:38During the Trump-Biden years of their presidency, on average, 5,400 people were paroled in the
04:44United States meeting those two criteria.
04:48Last year alone, it was almost 800,000 paroled by the Biden administration.
04:56Blanket parole.
04:57No individual analysis.
04:59So when Mayorkas testified in November, what he said is not true.
05:04And this is Exhibit A.
05:08Senator Graham, you've raised an important issue, and it's one that's always timely.
05:11But I think there's another perspective that ought to be shared.
05:14First, let's talk about Senate math.
05:17In Senate math, you need 60 votes to pass anything of
Comments

Recommended