Jeff Van Drew Asks Witnesses: Do You Believe It’s Inappropriate To Fund ‘Illegal Criminal Aliens?’

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During a House Judiciary Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) spoke about funding of those in the U.S. illegally.

Transcript

00:00I thank the ranking member. I am going to yield five minutes to myself.

00:05So, you know, I like to keep things simple sometimes. You know, I'm from Jersey, too.

00:10And sometimes simple truths really kind of display more complex truths as well.

00:17So I think there's a few simple truths. And let me I'm going to ask all of you.

00:20I'm going to ask for a really quick like yes or no answer.

00:23I believe open borders, sanctuary cities and sanctuary states where you're releasing individuals back into the community,

00:35including dangerous criminals who have been guilty and have committed crimes like rape on minors, like murder, like disfigurement,

00:44like dealing and selling drugs, just to name a few, like gun, violating gun laws, all of that.

00:54I think that's really bad. I don't think we should let that happen.

00:58Let's really get down to what this is all about.

01:00And the last administration, we let people like that come across the border and come into the United States of America.

01:08Would you agree with me that that's bad? Mr. Arthur, quickly, yes or no?

01:12Yes, I do, sir.

01:13Mr. Marino, yes. Yes. Mr. McCaskey, yes or no?

01:17Absolutely, sir. Mr. Hauser, yes or no?

01:19OK, so that's something we've already done better on.

01:22We're straightening that out now.

01:24We are not allowing those individuals to come into the United States of America.

01:30Do you believe, as I do, that as members of Congress and you can state this, don't be afraid to say it,

01:35that we have an added level of responsibility, the way that we comport ourselves,

01:40whether we are Republicans, whether we are Democrats, whatever we are, that we should behave in a certain fashion.

01:47We write laws. So you would believe that we would follow the rule and believe in the rule of law itself.

01:54And I believe we do have oversight.

01:58It's a process. You behave a certain way.

02:01It doesn't mean that you agree with everybody.

02:03It doesn't mean you don't investigate, but that you, as a member of Congress, as a congressman or a congresswoman,

02:10behave in an appropriate fashion lawfully, not in a combative assault type of way.

02:17Would you believe that that is true?

02:18Mr. Arthur, yes or no?

02:20Yes, and I attempted to comport myself that way when I was an oversight counsel.

02:24I'm sure you did.

02:26Mr. Marino, yes or no?

02:27Absolutely, yes.

02:28Mr. Mikowski, yes or no?

02:30Yes, sir.

02:31Mr. Hauser, yes or no?

02:32Absolutely, sir. It's what the military...

02:33So we saw the video.

02:35You saw the video.

02:36I don't have to say any words.

02:38Look at the video.

02:39Even all you who came here with a certain focus in your mind and were told to believe something,

02:44look at the video and see what it shows.

02:47That's all I'll say.

02:48Thirdly, do you think there's a financial effect on all of us in America while we debate the great issues of the day?

02:57How much should we spend?

02:58Where should we spend it?

02:59What should we do with the fiscal resources that we have, with the dollars that we bring in through taxation?

03:07Do you believe it's inappropriate to fund illegals, including illegal criminals, which we have?

03:14I can ask you that question. In fact, I'll ask you a question very quickly.

03:19In the past administration, did we at times fund illegal aliens?

03:23I'm sorry, illegal criminal aliens.

03:25Absolutely.

03:26Did we fund illegal criminal aliens?

03:28Yes, sir.

03:29Did we fund illegal criminal aliens in the last administration?

03:31Yes, sir.

03:32Did we, Mr. Hauser, fund illegal aliens?

03:33What does fund mean, sir?

03:34Give them stuff. Give them housing. Give them clothing. Give them transportation. Give them education.

03:42Give them, in some cases, debit cards.

03:44Did we do that?

03:45We have provided resources to migrants for 60 years.

03:47Right. We funded them.

03:4760 years, sir.

03:48We funded them.

03:49Not illegal bad people we didn't.

03:51No.

03:52I disagree, and that's wrong.

03:54And would you believe that costs people?

03:56I don't even, we don't even have to go into it.

03:58Of course it costs the taxpayer.

03:59Of course, when resources are sparse and we'll argue about Medicaid and SNAP and all these things,

04:05how about we don't give money to people who are really bad people doing bad things,

04:11send them back to the country of origin?

04:12Maybe that's a good idea.

04:14And I did want to address the ranking member, not the ranking member of the subcommittee,

04:19Mr. Raskin.

04:20He always loves to talk about the Senate bill, so I always have to talk about it as well.

04:24It was a bad bill.

04:25I didn't know, I knew it was a bad bill the minute we saw it in judiciary.

04:29Had nothing to do with Donald Trump.

04:31It codified illegal aliens.

04:33It allowed up to 1.8 million to come into the country before anything was done.

04:38It did nothing about catch and release.

04:41It did nothing about the wall.

04:42It didn't rebuild the wall.

04:44It did nothing.

04:45In the past, we had Title 42.

04:46And it didn't do anything about the remain in Mexico policy.

04:52Now, real quickly, would you agree that those, some of those policies in the past administration

04:57were good and that we really didn't need a whole lot more legislation that we could have done it

05:04through the president at the time under the Biden administration, yes or no?

05:07Absolutely.

05:08Mr. Marino, yes or no?

05:10Mr. Makowski, yes or no?

05:11Yes, sir.

05:12Mr. Hauser, yes or no?

05:13Sir, can you just give me the question one more time?

05:15All the things that I just mentioned, all the things that could be done to protect our borders,

05:19we had the tremendous, the biggest disaster in border crossings in our American history.

05:25Couldn't have we had prevented that purely by presidential action, not by a faulty, bad Senate bill?

05:31I think you're going to see a good bill come out of this Congress.

05:34Sir, I would only state that this is only the first hundred days.

05:36You're going to see border surges.

05:38I didn't ask that question.

05:39Until we don't need the Alien and Sedition Act to carry out immigration.

05:41Nobody's talking about it.

05:42We have Title 8.

05:42Do you believe that we could have done better in the Biden administration through presidential action than we did?

05:49Sir, clearly.

05:50Yes or no?

05:51Yes or no?

05:51At the beginning, sir, there was mistakes.

05:53Yes or no?

05:54Yes.

05:54We screwed up.

05:55We did a bad job in the Biden administration.

05:57You know, I mean, even you've got to kind of admit that.

05:59And now we're trying to straighten out the mess.

06:02With that, I will yield back.

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