'It's Not Even Close!': Michael Guest Goes Nuclear On Parole Policy Abuses During Questioning

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During a House Homeland Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS) asked the Senior Fellow at Center for Renewing America Ken Cuccinelli about policy that would control blanket paroles.

Transcript

00:00Gentleman Yields, I now recognize Representative Guest for his five-minute question.

00:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:05Mr. Cuccinelli, you mentioned in both your opening statement and your written testimony

00:10the applicable law that must be applied by DHS, by the Secretary, when parole is considered.

00:19The IIRIRA passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in 1996,

00:26signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, again, easily passed the House,

00:32easily passed the Senate.

00:35And as I look at that law, it seems to me to set forth both the process and the standard,

00:44the process being that it must be applied on a case-by-case basis.

00:48Is there any part of the IIRIRA that allows the law to be applied in a situation of mass parole?

01:00Can the Secretary just decide, I'm not going to follow the case-by-case,

01:04I'm just going to set forth these categories of people,

01:07and if you fall into this broad category of individuals,

01:11then I'm automatically going to assume that the process portion of that has been met?

01:19No is the answer.

01:20And it's clearly no, correct?

01:22It is.

01:23It's not even close.

01:25There's no ambiguity as to what the statute says.

01:28This is the only statute that contains any aspect of the parole authority.

01:35There aren't multiple statutes to look at, as we sometimes see in the immigration space.

01:39This is it.

01:40And so the first part, it says, fourth, is the process,

01:44and then the standard says it must be on the basis of urgent humanitarian reasons

01:49or significant public benefit.

01:53Are there any more standards that the Secretary can choose to apply?

01:57No.

01:59So you mentioned there, and some of the questioning by Chairman Bruckreen,

02:05you mentioned somewhat in your written statement, too,

02:09that historically, prior to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Secretary Mayorkas coming into office

02:17and abusing this parole system,

02:20that historically, on an annual basis,

02:24the number of individuals who were granted parole were in the low thousands.

02:30Is that what I heard from you, Mr. Cicinelli?

02:32You did. There have been exceptions, but they tend to reach back before 1996.

02:39And you even mentioned a range in your written statement of 3,000 to 5,000.

02:44Can you expand on where that came from?

02:46That's my suggestion as to how to bring this system under control.

02:50If you are going to have administrations that sometimes will simply not abide by the plain language

02:58of the statute Congress passed,

03:01then you need to put in harder, more objective limitations in place.

03:08If the alternative is complete unfettered discretion,

03:12which is how the Biden administration operated,

03:14or zero,

03:15there are reasons both of those are bad.

03:19So, thus, my suggestion in the 3,000 to 5,000 range of putting a hard cap on an annual basis

03:26on the Secretary of Homeland Security

03:29and how many people they can let in using this parole authority.

03:32And so, when you say 3,000 to 5,000,

03:34that's annually, correct?

03:36Yes.

03:36That's 3,000 to 5,000 a year.

03:39I did some rough math.

03:41I took into account, said that there were 3 million people that came in and were paroled

03:47during that four-year period,

03:49divided by the number of days over four years.

03:54And at 3 million, that's over 2,000 individuals a day.

03:59A day.

03:59Each and every day, Monday through Friday,

04:02Saturday and Sunday, Christmas, New Year's, July 4th,

04:06that were paroled in the country.

04:08And then, given the administration just the benefit of the doubt,

04:11at 2.5 million.

04:13I did that math.

04:14That's 1,700 individuals a day,

04:17each and every day for four years.

04:22And so, what you're telling me is that we should be

04:25shooting for a range of somewhere between three and five.

04:29And let's just double that number, just for argument statement.

04:31Maybe we say 10.

04:33Maybe we say 20,000 is a good number.

04:37But we, in a given week,

04:39were doing over 14,000 individuals in a given week.

04:44And so, Mr. Kuchin, just let me ask you,

04:47as my time draws near,

04:49based on what you know about the law,

04:52the standards and the process that must be met,

04:56did Secretary Mayorkas,

04:58did the Department of Homeland Security,

05:00under the prior administration,

05:03did they abide by the law,

05:05or did they abuse the law that was given to them by Congress?

05:09They rather obviously abused the law.

05:12Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:13I yield back.

05:14Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:15Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:16Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:17Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:18Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:19Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:20Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:21Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:22Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:23Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:24Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:25Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:26Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:27Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:28Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:29Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:30Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:31Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:32Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:33Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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