During a House Homeland Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC) asked the Senior Fellow at Center for Renewing America Ken Cuccinelli about illegal immigration into the U.S.
00:00Representative Knott for his five minutes of questioning.
00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:04You know, one of the great frustrations here is the conflation of legal immigration and illegal immigration.
00:10And the Democratic Party has made a habit of painting it with one swoop.
00:16Republicans are against all immigrants, and that could not be further from the truth.
00:20And as someone who worked over the last decade prosecuting illegal immigrant criminals,
00:25I can tell you I have zero problems with them wearing masks.
00:30We have organized crime.
00:31We have violent crime.
00:32We have international criminal operations that are here in this country, the likes of which few citizens can conceive of.
00:39And they perform counter-surveillance.
00:41They are sophisticated.
00:42They're ruthless.
00:43And the level of violence that they operate in is a level that most Americans cannot conceive of.
00:48So I find it offensive that we are calling out our officers for protecting themselves.
00:52No, I will not.
00:54No, I will not.
00:54And this idea that we can bring as many people into this country from anywhere in the world, no matter where they come from, no matter what they believe, no matter what culture they hail from, without consequence, and truly, that it will only benefit this country is just laughable.
01:11It's just laughable.
01:11We have 40 million illegal immigrants in this country.
01:15And we just have to ask ourselves, so Ms. Johnson, how many of the world's poor can we bring in here, in addition to the legal immigrants, in addition to the legal immigrants, before the American economy, before Americans are harmed?
01:29We can't even take care of our own poor.
01:32And the thought that we could bring in millions and millions of illegals and not have a detrimental effect on our country, I find it offensive.
01:40How many millions of low-skilled, illiterate individuals should we bring into the United States while our own children fall behind, while our own children are lagging in schools?
01:51Dozens of countries from around the world sanction extreme persecution for religious or political differences.
01:58Should we bring millions of those people into the United States?
02:02In many countries, you can be executed because you are a Christian, because you are a homosexual, because you disagree on a political matter.
02:10Should we bring 10, 20, 30, 50 million of those people into the country?
02:14This whole premise is absolutely outrageous.
02:17And the American people know that unchecked immigration on an illegal basis will bring this country to its knees.
02:24So conflating the two, illegal immigration, open borders, unchecked migration, mass migration into this country is only harmful.
02:34We could not be more robust in our favor for legal immigration.
02:39It is illegal immigration that we should be fighting against.
02:42The Democrats have not shifted one centimeter since November.
02:46They only advocate for open borders and unchecked illegal immigration.
02:53And I find it astounding.
02:56Now, Mr. Cuccinelli, there was a lengthy discussion earlier that said that the ICE officers who are bravely trying to eradicate some of these criminals and get them out of the country are only operating on the basis of race.
03:11Again, I've worked with them.
03:12I think that is a grotesque overstatement, but I'll let you respond to it.
03:17So when I was the deputy secretary and overseeing ICE, any operation, they didn't just wake up one day and say, who are we going to get today?
03:28Investigation, research, and preparation goes into every field operation that you see and don't see.
03:36Right.
03:37People are not winging it.
03:39They're prepared.
03:41They're professionals.
03:43They do this for a variety of reasons.
03:45One, to preserve the safety of everyone going out, including the people they're going to encounter, by the way.
03:51You bring enough force to maintain the peace so that no one is tempted to be violent.
03:59That's part of the preparation, as you well know.
04:02They execute on that plan.
04:04And all the allegations here about, oh, they're just after this or that on that one sole thing.
04:10They're just hitting people at Home Depot.
04:12That is just the biggest pile of horse manure I've heard in a long time.
04:16Gentleman yield?
04:17Nope.
04:17So, you know, the comment was made, maybe it's the mission.
04:21I think she's right.
04:22That's not a reason that law enforcement officers shouldn't be enforcing the law.
04:29Your Congress, if you don't like their mission, change the law.
04:33They are executing the law properly.
04:35And the whole question of masks, the fact that people in the federal government don't approve of ICE agents protecting themselves under situations.
04:45And let's be really clear here.
04:47They're not threatening ICE agents.
04:48They're threatening their families.
04:50American citizens being arrested.
04:52No, that's two seconds.
04:53Families are being threatened.
04:54And I will say, just in closing, Mr. Chairman, that there were roughly almost 3 million people grant temporary protective status.
05:00If each one of those people were given an hour, that's 330 years of government time to vet those people.
05:06I think it's laughable to assume that those people were properly vetted before they were brought into this country.
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