▶ 0:24:23Uh the subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. Uh we welcome everyone to today's hearing on temporary protected status. And I'll now recognize myself for an opening statement. The subcommittee meets today to consider the temporary protected status program, its abuse by the Biden administration, its effect on American communities, and what reforms are required to prevent such abuse in the future.
▶ 0:24:52Our nation's just suffered the largest illegal mass migration in history, aided, emedded, and encouraged by the Biden administration and its allies in Congress. This subcommittee has documented the cost to our country. Hospitals overrun with illegals demanding care. Food pantries and homeless shelters overwhelmed. Classrooms packed with students. Rampant child sex and labor trafficking.
▶ 0:25:20Hundreds of thousands of Americans dead from fentanyl overdoses. Suppressed wages for working families. 160 billion dollars in welfare cost to support this population. and worst of all, the introduction of the most violent criminal gangs and cartels in the world into our communities. President Trump reversed these ruinous policies by simply enforcing our existing immigration laws. Illegal border crossings immediately plunged more than 95%.
▶ 0:25:51The largest illegal mass migration in history is now followed by the largest legal deportation in history. Although it's being obstructed by vicious and often violent street mobs incited and encouraged by some of our Democratic One aspect of this nightmare was the abuse of the so-called temporary protected status program under the Biden administration that proved Ronald Reagan's maxim that there's nothing more permanent on this earth than a temporary government program.
▶ 0:26:21TPS was intended to provide temporary residency to aliens who were legally in our country when a disaster befell their own. An earthquake, a hurricane, a civil war that temporarily prevented their safe return. It was never intended to encourage illegal entry by aliens fleeing such conditions. Its nature is in the first word to describe it, temporary.
▶ 0:26:45And the law gives the administration broad latitude not only to extend such temporary protected status when circumstances required but also to res withdraw that status when those circumstances change. But along the way, temporary protected status became permanent protected status. For example, such status was extended to citizens of El Salvador after a series of earthquakes in 2001 and never withdrawn.
▶ 0:27:12It was extended to citizens of Honduras after Hurricane Mitch struck that country in 1998 and never withdrawn. Even the Democratic witness admits that many TPS beneficiaries have been here for 10 or even 20 years.
▶ 0:27:26Worse, most of the TPS beneficiaries under Biden did not enter the country legally only to find themselves stranded by unfortunate events, but rather they entered the country illegally to claim such status or re or were rewarded for their illegal entry by attaining such These abuses followed the TPS program to a balloon from roughly 410,000 when Biden took office to nearly 1 and a half million aliens on the day that he left
▶ 0:27:58As the number of aliens with TPS skyrocketed, American communities such as Loganport, Indiana, Springfield, Ohio, and Charlotte, Pennsylvania, cried out for help. These American communities struggled as large influxes of these foreign nationals arrived in their neighborhoods. most of whom who had entered the country illegally. These aliens compete with Americans for housing, medical care, education, emergency services, law enforcement services, and other social services.
▶ 0:28:26New burdens on communities already strained to the breaking point include linguistic and cultural barriers in schools, forcing American students to learn at the pace of those students who are still learning English, alarming numbers of car crashes involving foreign nationals who in many cases do not carry the requisite insurance so that the victim can be made whole, increased numbers of emergency calls, the reintroduction of diseases previously eradicated from the United States, and much more. We'll hear from one of those communities in a few minutes.
▶ 0:28:57The Trump administration has heeded the cries of the American people. Since taking office, the president has moved to withdraw TPS status for foreign nationals whose conditions no longer warrant such status. In other cases, the Trump administration has determined that these TPS designations are simply not in our country's national interest. These findings have terminated designations in all but five of the 17 countries previously designated.
▶ 0:29:22The purpose of today's hearing is to hear the real world impact of these abuses on American towns and to identify what changes need to be made to asssure that no future president can abuse this program as did Joe Biden. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I now yield to the ranking member for her opening
▶ 0:29:41Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for u holding this hearing on an issue that goes to the core of who we are as a country. Uh temporary protected status or TPS. I want to recognize that we have uh a number of people here in the room who hold temporary protected status. I want to welcome you all to this hearing. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're with us.
▶ 0:30:04This program established by Congress in 1990 provides people who are already in the United States a safe haven when their home countries are devastated by armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary conditions. TPS is built on the simple idea that we as a country should not force people back to deadly and life-threatening conditions. And this is a principle that has guided both Republican and Democratic administrations for years.
▶ 0:30:32But today, the Trump administration is dismantling this long-standing commitment. They are ending TPS for countries where conditions are still extraordinarily dangerous. Countries like Haiti, Venezuela, and South Sudan. All of which the Department of State currently lifts under level four do not travel advisories because of the dangerous and unstable conditions there. Let's be honest about what this means.
▶ 0:30:58When TPS is terminated for these countries, we are forcing people to return to real and imminent harm. The actions by Secretary Gnome will lead to people's deaths. That goes against everything that this country is supposed to stand for as well as our own laws. And I'm sad to see us go down this path, but I can't say that I'm surprised. This is all part of this administration's mass deportation agenda, which is wreaking havoc on this country.
▶ 0:31:26Heavily armed masked men are terrorizing communities all across America under the guise of immigration enforcement. They are snatching people of all immigration statuses on the street and refusing to even identify themselves. And even US citizens have not been spared. There are too many reports of US citizens being wrongfully detained and oftentimes with violent force.
▶ 0:31:51Just last week, a US citizen in Minnesota was tackled by a masked agent running full speed. He was put in a chokeold and dragged into the agent's Despite repeatedly telling the agents that he was a US citizen and that he had proof of citizenship on his phone, he was held for several hours and driven to a facility miles away before finally being released and told to walk back in the snow.
▶ 0:32:19This comes as Homeland Security Investigations has said in court filings that the Trump administration does not consider real IDs to be reliable proof of lawful status. I'm not sure how any of us anywhere in the country are supposed to feel safe from being kidnapped and disappeared off the streets. The Trump administration's relentless attack on TPS is only making things worse. TPS recipients aren't outsiders in our communities.
▶ 0:32:49They live in our neighborhoods, raise their families here, and help keep local economies running. Nearly 600,000 US citizens, including more than 260,000 US citizen children, live in households with TPS recipients. TPS has also allowed hundreds of thousands of people to work legally, often in industries that are already experiencing severe labor shortages.
▶ 0:33:17These are folks working in construction, hospitality, food processing, manufacturing, the kinds of jobs that keep our economy running. and that many businesses are struggling to fill. They pay taxes, support local businesses, and contribute billions of dollars to our economy every single year.
▶ 0:33:36In all, TPS holders contribute about $21 billion annually to the US economy, and they pay $5.2 billion in combined federal, payroll, state, and local taxes. and they also contribute about $690 million annually to social security. Many TPS holders have lived in the United States for years, often decades, living in 12 to 18month renewal increments.
▶ 0:34:04As such, they are among the most frequently vetted immigrants in the country. They have followed our laws, paid their taxes, and demonstrated their commitment to this country. Instead of stripping them of legal status and sending them back to dangerous conditions, we should be providing them with a path to long-term stability.
▶ 0:34:24This is why when Democrats were in the majority, we passed HR6, the American Dream and Promise Act on a bipartisan basis, I might add, in the 116th and 117th Congress. That legislation would have provided a path to citizenship for individuals who currently had or were eligible for TPS. The Trump administration loves to claim that it is only going after the quote worst of the worst. But we know that this is a lie.
▶ 0:34:52Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle used to say that they love legal immigration, but they've been silent as this administration has done everything it can to end legal immigration, including decimating TPS and throwing a lawful status of over a million people into limbo. We should be using our time to work towards an immigration system that is modernized, fair, and in line with the needs of our families and our economy.
▶ 0:35:22Attacking legal immigration is not just morally wrong. It actually makes no sense. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I yield back.
▶ 0:35:32Gentle lady re yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. We'll now introduce today's witnesses. We begin with Mr. James Rogers, who is senior counsel at America First Legal Foundation, where he litigates in a number of areas, including border security, election integrity, parental rights, and administrative and constitutional law.
▶ 0:35:53Before joining America First Legal, he served as senior litigation counsel at the Solicitor General's Office of the Arizona Attorney General's Office, as a foreign service officer at the US Department of State, and as a commercial litigation partner at Osborne Maladon. Mr. Rogers earned his JD from Harvard Law School and an LLM in international law from the University of Cambridge and a BA with honors from Brigham Young University. Mr. George Fishman is a senior senior legal fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.
▶ 0:36:22During the first Trump administration, Mr. Fishman served as deputy general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security and acting chief counsel for US citizenship and immigration services. Prior to that, Mr. Mr. Fishman served for two decades as the Republican chief counsel for this subcommittee, shephering through Congress countless conservative immigration related pieces of legislation. He earned a JD from the University of Michigan Law School and a BA in economics and philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne. Mr.
▶ 0:36:51Fishman, welcome back to the committee. Mr. James Williams has been the general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades since 2021. Mr. Mr. Williams has served in various positions within the organization, including leadership roles since beginning his career with the union in Mr. Larry Salashi, did I say that right, sir? Has served as councilman for the burrow of Charoy, Pennsylvania for more Did I say that right?
▶ 0:37:20Charoy Charoy, Pennsylvania for more than a decade. In addition to his public service, Mr. Salashi has worked for 20 years as an insurance agent before retiring in 2024. He is also a college sports announcer, a professional musician. What's your instrument?
▶ 0:37:37Drummer. Okay, very good. And a DJ. Mr. Salashi attended Cal California University of Pennsylvania where he earned a BA in economics. We welcome our witnesses and we thank each of you for joining us today. Uh we'll begin by swearing you in. Would you each please rise and raise your right hand? Do each of you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and is correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief.
▶ 0:38:06So help you Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. You may be seated. Thank you. I want you to know that your written rest testimony uh has been entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes.
▶ 0:38:26when you are nearing that five minutes like when 10 or 15 seconds left you're going to hear this and then you're going to at when you're done you're going to hear this and then at some point um we'll I don't know what we'll do next but uh but would ask you to keep it to the five minutes uh if you can and we encourage you very much and also remind you when it's your turn please turn on your microphone so we can all hear you. Thank you. We'll begin now with Mr.
▶ 0:38:54Rogers for for 5 minutes.
▶ 0:38:58Mr. Chair, ranking member Jaipal, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify. I have been an attorney since 2009, and a significant part of my practice for years has been immigration law and border security. I also bring six years experience as a foreign service officer, including two years as a consular officer conducting visa interviews and two years as an attorney adviser in the State Department's legal office. TPS was supposed to be a limited humanitarian program for foreign nationals facing armed conflict, natural disaster, or extraordinary emergencies.
▶ 0:39:27But that humanitarian intent has been twisted into permanent amnesty. The program fails every measure of its original purpose. It is not temporary. Somalia has held TPS since 199 1991, longer than some sitting members of Congress have been alive. It is not protective. TPS recipients remain decades after the triggering events fade. It is not humanitarian. The evidence shows economic motivations dominate amongst beneficiaries with TPS serving as cover for economic migration. It is not limited.
▶ 0:39:56Entire countries receive blanket designations despite localized crises. It is not lawfully administered. Congress explicitly barred judicial review of TPS determinations. Yet courts intervene repeatedly to block lawful terminations. And it is not fiscally responsible. TPS recipients like illegal aliens generally are predominantly low-skilled and impose net costs on taxpayers. Now, let me unpack some of those points a little more. First, TPS is a backdoor amnesty mechanism.
▶ 0:40:24TPS country designations can only last up to 18 months after which DHS must decide to extend or terminate. But DHS has invented with no statutory basis a practice of redesation whereby it extends eligibility to allow aliens who entered after the original crisis. For Somalia, the cutoff moved from 1991 to 2012, granting amnesty to 21 years worth of illegal entrance. Hades cutoff extended from 2010 to 2023. This creates direct incentives for illegal immigration.
▶ 0:40:52After Venezuela received TPS in 2021 and was redesated in 2023, encounters of Venezuelan nationals topped 300,000 each in fiscal years 2023 and 2024. Since Hades 2021 redesation, CBP encountered roughly half a million Haitians illegally crossing our borders. Each red designation signific uh each red designation signals that illegal entry will be eventually rewarded. UCLA research shows TPS holders average 20 years of US residence with twothirds having children here.
▶ 0:41:21They are not temporary visitors but permanent settlers. Second, TPS designations are protextual and overroad. TPS requires that aliens cannot safely return to their home country because of war, natural disaster, or extraordinary and temporary conditions. Yet at the same time, the State Department has continued to issue temporary visas to citizens of TPS countries. That's incoherent. Non-immigrant visa applicants must prove intent to return home. If conditions truly prevent safe return, how can console officers credibly issue visas?
▶ 0:41:51Either conditions are not uniformly dangerous, undermining TPS's rationale, or State Department conser officers are illegally issuing visas. Designations are also geographically overroad. El Salvador received TPS for localized earthquakes, yet the designation covered all Salvadorans. The same happened with Hades earthquake at Porter Prince. The statute permits designating part of a foreign state, but DHS never uses that authority, resulting in blanket coverage far exceeding humanitarian need. Third, judges have usurped executive authority. Congress was clear.
▶ 0:42:20The statute specifically says there is no judicial review, that's a quote, no judicial review of of the secretary's TPS designations or terminations. Yet courts have repeatedly blocked Trump administration TPS terminations, including for Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, demanding extraordinary justification and scrutinizing terminations far more strictly than extensions. This one-way ratchet means that TPS only grows, never contracts. Fourth, TPS imposes net fiscal costs. TPS recipients like illegal immigrants generally are predominantly low-skilled.
▶ 0:42:51Research shows the average illegal immigrant creates a lifetime net fiscal drain of 87,000 to 110,000 per person. even accounting for taxes paid. With 1.3 million TPS recipients, that represents 113 to 143 billion in total net costs. In conclusion, TPS functions, [clears throat] excuse me, TPS functions as permanent amnesty that undermines that undermines the rule of law, burdens taxpayers, and signals worldwide that illegal entry pays.
▶ 0:43:21At minimum, Congress should restrict eligibility to legally admitted aliens, eliminate the catch-all extraordinary conditions category, prohibit redesations, require that designations be geographically limited, set firm time limits, and prevent courts from blocking lawful terminations, better yet, abolish TPS entirely. Unless reformed or eliminated, TPS will continue undercutting immigration law and burdening Americans while providing minimal, genuine humanitarian protection. Thank you.
▶ 0:43:47Thank you. Chair now recognizes Mr. Fishman for his five minutes.
▶ 0:43:54Mr. Biggs, ranking member of Gyipol, I am honored to have the opportunity to testify before you, the members, and the subcommittee. Who said you can never come go home again? I began working for the subcommittee in 1995, became chief Republican counsel in 1998, and served in that capacity until 2018. While on the committee, I worked under four extraordinary chairmen and I worked with extraordinary colleagues, none more so than Andrea Loving.
▶ 0:44:25As the Ninth Circuit has explained, beginning in 1980, Congress introduced a series of bills to address its concerns with extended voluntary departure and to provide a more formal and orderly mechanism for group-based grants of humanitarian protection, eventually culminating in the 1990 enactment of temporary protected status. Extended voluntary departure is blanket immigration relief for all members of a national group.
▶ 0:44:54And the former chairman of this subcommittee, Romano Misolei, in 1988 described it as having only the shakiest of legislative foundations without any statutory criteria. Congress created TPS for three reasons. First, to provide immigration relief to many thousands of illegal aliens from El Salvador.
▶ 0:45:16Second, in the words of Judiciary Committee ranking member, ranking Republican at the time, Hamilton Fish, because there was then no clear statutory relief available providing temporary protection for reasons unrelated to persecution.
▶ 0:45:31And third, because as subcommittee chairman at the time, Bruce Morrison said, the executive branch had created EBD out of whole cloth and there ought to be a statutory At a 1999 hearing of this subcommittee on this subject, Chairman Lamar Smith said, "The question is not whether TPS should be granted. In many instances, it should be. The question is whether it is really temporary and to what extent TPS invites fraud.
▶ 0:46:02That is the lens through which I view TPS." Congressional advocates at the time were careful to emphasize that TPS would one convey a purely temporary status and two require beneficiaries to leave once their country's designation was terminated.
▶ 0:46:21House Democrat whip William Gray said, "We are not asking that they be allowed to live indefinitely in the country." Chairman Misolei said the aliens must return home unless TPS status is extended. and he said that beneficiaries will be identified so that when they can safely return home we can enforce the laws with respect to them.
▶ 0:46:44Representative Joe Mowley said, "I have heard it said that if we enact TPS, the people covered will stay here forever, but assured people, assured members that I am certain that many, if not most, dream of the day that they can return to the land where they were born and that a substantial majority will return voluntarily and this bill provides a mechanism to ensure this result.
▶ 0:47:10In fact, the judiciary committee report criticized EVD in contrast to temporary protected status because quote INS cannot affectuate the deportation of aliens whose EVD status has expired.
▶ 0:47:26At the subcommittee's 1999 hearing, my colleague Mark Roran testified that TPS would simply be a lie if it were used as a backdoor to permanent immigration, but predicted that few, if any, Hondurans or Nicaraguans currently covered by TPS will ever depart voluntarily or be removed. These fears were certainly precient.
▶ 0:47:48Last year, the Pew Research Center concluded that some TPS beneficiaries have lived in the US for two decades or more. In fact, le um under the law periodically following a TPS designation, DHS shall determine whether the conditions for such designation continue to be met. If it determines that a country no longer continues to meet the conditions for designation, DHS shall terminate the designation.
▶ 0:48:18Otherwise, DHS shall extend the designation. The Biden administration's extension of El Salvador's designation earlier this year demonstrates why a country can remain designated for so long. DHS did not believe that present- day adverse conditions have to bear any relationship to the original qualifying event, such as a quarter century old earthquake.
▶ 0:48:41But DHS did believe that nonoptimal climactic conditions were sufficient even with no expectation of change in anyone's lifetime. In fact, Leon Rodriguez, the Obama administration's USCIS director, said that intervening factors were relevant regardless of whether they had any connection to the event that formed the basis for the original designation.
▶ 0:49:08TPS needs to be uh reformed and I thank you for um the privilege of testifying.
▶ 0:49:16Thank Thank you, Mr. Fisherman. Thank you. Chair now recognizing Mr. Williams for his five-minute testimony.
▶ 0:49:20Good afternoon, Mr. Biggs and ranking member Gyipel. Um as stated, my name is Jimmy Williams. I'm the I serve as the general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades and I look forward to being able to talk about the positive impact that TPS recipients have had both in our industry, in our union, and in our communities.
▶ 0:49:41Our union is made up of over 140,000 men and women across the United States and Canada who work who work largely in the finishing trades industries. I myself am a construction worker by trade and I'm a fourth generation member of my union, a union that was founded by immigrant workers.
▶ 0:50:01And our union has always fought hard to make sure that this body looks to find a a humane and dignifying path for immigrant workers and the contributions that they've made on our country. And I'm and I look forward to talking about the positive impacts that TPS workers have had on our union for well over 30 years.
▶ 0:50:21You know, the IUPAT has been at the forefront of fighting for true comprehensive immigration reform and we will continue to fight for true comprehensive immigration reform. As was stated by ranking member Jaipal, TPS recipients are the most screened group of immigrants that come to our country every 18 months, have to submit to background checks, have to pay fees to this country within our union.
▶ 0:50:48Those that are members of our union, pay my salary to represent them like I am here today and pay your salary in the form of taxes. And the contributions that have been made by TPS recipients go well beyond just what they do in the workplace in their communities as well as was stated their families. They fought wars. They've supported this country at every single level. We owe them the respect that they deserve and our union will continue to fight for them.
▶ 0:51:18within our union. You know, we have had numerous numerous complaints already by our employers, our partners that are worried about where the workforce of tomorrow is going to be in the construction industry.
▶ 0:51:31We are experiencing severe workforce workforce shortages and we're seeing long-term investments that have been made into TPS recipients in the form of workforce training that our union alone spends over $125 million a year to train the highest skilled workforce known to man.
▶ 0:51:52And so when we talk about immigrant workers as low-skilled, it can become offensive because I know the investment that we have made, you know, and when you think about what this country is doing to TPS recipients by pulling the rug out while they are contributing to this society, it only will drive people further into the shadows. Our country cannot look at this issue as just an immigration issue. It is also a labor law issue.
▶ 0:52:20I can tell you I served 14 years as my union's organizing director and I have spoken to the worst of the worst cases of worker mclassification and wage theft when allowed to be used because this country has yet to adopt labor law reform in my lifetime. It is impossible for our membership and for usborn construction workers to compete in such a low road economy.
▶ 0:52:47And with the current administration's plan to strip nearly 1 million workers of the protections that allow them to work legally in this country, we run the risk of running one more million workers into that shadow economy which has destroyed working conditions for our members and for working people here in the United States. And look, there's also just what is the country we want to live in?
▶ 0:53:14Our unions were founded by immigrants and and most unions in this country were. And at a time where we actually gave workers more authority and more power over their economy, I believe that this body's inability to act over the course of the last 40 years on comprehensive immigration reform is what has led us to this point.
▶ 0:53:39And it's interesting, you don't hear the president of the United States, and you don't hear counterparts talk about the employers that have abused the system of immigration now to create what is the largest wealth gap since prior to the Great Depression. And we cannot have a conversation here today about immigration reform if we don't also include how we treat workers in this country. And I thank you.
▶ 0:54:05Thank you. The chair now recognizes uh Mr. Salashi for your five minutes.
▶ 0:54:11Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, ranking member, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Larry Salaski. I'm a resident and elected councilman of the Burough Shawy, Pennsylvania, a small former mill and glass town of approximately 4,000 residents in Washington County. I'm not appearing before you as someone chasing talking points, as an academic or as a policy consultant.
▶ 0:54:38I'm here as a local elected official who's had to look residents in the eye and explain why their town no longer feels safe, stable, or familiar. And why decisions made from from Sholaroy have imposed consequences our community never agreed to accept. Shalerie did not volunteer to become a test case for federal immigration policy. We were not consulted. We were not asked about capacity. And we were not equipped for what was imposed upon us.
▶ 0:55:09Yet, our burrow has been repeatedly referenced in national media and political discussions as an example of how current immigration policy plays out in real American communities. I'm here to explain what that is meant on the Shaler is less than a mile long from its first traffic light to its last.
▶ 0:55:29Under the Biden's administration's approach to immigration enforcement and refugee placement, our burrow absorbed an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 migrants in a very short period of time. That represents a population increase approximately 50 to 75%. No communities, large or small, can observe that level of growth overnight without serious consequences.
▶ 0:55:53Shalery has limited tax base, aging housing stock, and lean municipal services by necessity, not choice. Our police department is small. Our fire department is volunteer. Our ambulance service is nonprofit and operates on margins of financial viability. We're not a sanctuary city, a border community, or a major metropolitan area with layered social service infrastructure. Yes. Yet we were treated as if we were federal decisions without with local consequences.
▶ 0:56:24The placement of large numbers of migrants in Cholaroy was not initiated by our burough council. We were not asked if we had the housing capacity, public safety resources, school support, or healthc care infrastructure to absorb this population.
▶ 0:56:39Federal agencies and non-governmental organizations placed individuals into our housing, schools, and neighborhoods without providing proportional investments in policing, emergency medical services, housing inspections, translation services, healthc care capacity or infrastructure. The outcome was predictable and Strain on public safety and municipal services.
▶ 0:57:05Scholar's police department, volunteer fire department, ambulance service, and code enforcement have all experienced a significant increase in service calls. Many of these calls involve language barriers, overcrowded housing conditions, and unfamiliarity with local laws and traffic regulations. Charlotte does not have a paid dedicated interpreter or translation service.
▶ 0:57:26Our first responders now spend significantly more time on each call, stretching limited resources and increasing response times for everyone in the community. Our ambulance service is currently carrying more than $250,000 in uncollectible debt tied to the migrant emergency calls. For a small nonprofit service, this level of uncompensated care is unsustainable and places the entire community at risk.
▶ 0:57:52Our volunteer fire department is feeling the brunt of the financial stress the immigrant community has placed on their shoestring budget. Our code enforcement office has been overwhelmed by unsafe and overcrowded rental properties. Some housing double or triple their intended occupancies. These conditions pose serious risk to occupants, neighboring residents and first responders. Let me be clear.
▶ 0:58:17The individuals arriving in Shalery are human beings, but the local residents are human beings as well, and they are paying taxpaying American citizens who have done nothing wrong and who are bearing the consequences of the Biden administration immigration policies. The photographs and documentation I submitted is not exaggerated and it is certainly not a joke. It makes our community very angry that our town has experienced frequent car crashes caused by the migrant drivers.
▶ 0:58:45This has wrecked havoc on the non-fault parties who had to pay the price. Vehicles driven by unlicensed, uninsured, and non-English-speaking drivers are involved in daily collisions on narrow residential streets, cars overturning, plowing into homes, businesses, and destroying personal property. Even the current and former mayor's own property has been damaged under these circumstances. This is reality in Shaler, folks, where the posted speed limit is 25 miles an hour or less.
▶ 0:59:14Families are afraid in their own neighborhoods. Seniors are frightened to walk outside. This is not just about traffic safety. Shaler has suffered severe reputational and legal harm. The United State Justice Department successfully prosecuted a Shalery staffing agency owner, sentencing him to prison and ordered over 3.6 million in restitution for harboring illegal aliens and failing to pay employment taxes. There has been a targeted killing of an immigrant tied to the immigrant van agencies.
▶ 0:59:43Another immigrant death is currently under investigation by the Washington County District Attorney's office. These events have placed a national spotlight on a small burrow that lacks the resources, staffing, and infrastructure to manage the fallout. Request as a resident and councilman of the burough scholery, I respectfully urge Congress to require mandatory consultation with local governments before migrant or refugee placements occur. limited placements.
▶ 1:00:12The level's community can't realistically.
▶ 1:00:14Mr. Chairman, he's over a minute of time and you were [snorts] ging down others. So, I would appreciate it if you would stop the witness.
▶ 1:00:21My apologies,
▶ 1:00:22Mr. Salashi. Thank you. We have your full uh written testimony here. Appreciate it. Thank you.
▶ 1:00:28Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Tiffany.
▶ 1:00:32Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um Meliss uh Mr. Salashi, I'll give you 30 seconds of my time to conclude your remarks. Go ahead. Again, on request, limit placements to level communities can realistic support based on housing, public safety, school, and healthcare capacity. Provide direct, flexible funding to municipalities absorbing migrant population so local taxpayers are not left carrying the burden.
▶ 1:00:57Increase transparency, accountability, and oversight of nonprofit organizations involved in placement decisions. and reaffirmed that immigration policy must balance human humanitarian objectives with the safety, stability, and well-being of American communities. Shaler is not anti-immigrant. I support legal immigration and the American dream pursued through lawful means. However, what was imposed on our burrow has pushed public services to the breaking point and fundamentally altered our community without its consent.
▶ 1:01:27Mr. Salashi, I got to be a 30 seconds. Yeah, got 45. Hey, let me ask some questions here. Um, describe the role of the agencies and the NOS's, the agencies of federal government, the NOS's. Describe their role in how they brought these people into your community.
▶ 1:01:44That's the million-dollar question. The [snorts] only thing it comes back to is the NOS's.
▶ 1:01:49When did it start?
▶ 1:01:51Uh, roughly about 2022, we saw an influx.
▶ 1:01:56So, you're saying uh it's primarily NOS's that were driving these people in. Is that correct?
▶ 1:02:02Should locals have a say in this
▶ 1:02:05I just introduced a bill in regards to refugees called the CARE Act that would give state and local um state and locals a say in this rather than the federal government just taking these actions just an FYI. Has this led to a housing shortage in your community?
▶ 1:02:22Uh it's left to it's it's led to uh longtime shery residents selling their homes and leaving. what what used to be a uh heavily uh uh homeownership to landlord tenant 75 to 25 uh 60 to40 has reversed that trend and it's now heavy on landlord tenant to uh home ownership and uh a lot of those landlord tenant are are immigrant related
▶ 1:02:49so it's decreased home ownership in your community yes
▶ 1:02:52which has always been a bedrock of the American dream right
▶ 1:02:55you're absolutely
▶ 1:02:55able to own your own home
▶ 1:02:57uh thank you very much for that
▶ 1:02:59thank Thank you. Um, did I hear correctly, Mr. Fishman, that climate change is used as a justification not to return people to their home countries? Did I hear that right?
▶ 1:03:09Turn [snorts] your mic on. Sorry about that. Not only is it used, it's used for climate change having absolutely nothing to do with the event that precipitated TAPS in the first place. It's, you know, not much rainfall. Well, that could exist for thousands of years. That's not temporary. Is is an earthquake climate change? Is are earthquakes uh caused by climate change?
▶ 1:03:33I um I think geological are also factored in there. Geological
▶ 1:03:40Yeah. Okay. Um does the program as it's currently um um as it's currently set up and how it's been for the last few decades um does it lead to fraud in the immigration system? Um I think it uh very likely does lead to lead to fraud especially as Mr.
▶ 1:03:58Rogers was talking about people being designated people receiving DHS benefit uh TPS benefits who came here well after the initial designation uh in many cases by giving fraudulent information about when they came to the United States.
▶ 1:04:15Mr. Rogers, same question.
▶ 1:04:17Yes, absolutely could lead to fraud. Like Mr. fisherman said uh the the form just asks a date for when you arrived and they can fill in [snorts] any date they want.
▶ 1:04:24What type of types of fraud would would you see with something what types of fraud have you seen as a result of this?
▶ 1:04:30Well, personally as a conser officer, I never dealt with TPS beneficiaries, but the kind of fraud you'd see is that is that kind of thing is falsification of of dates. The whole point of TPS is supposed to be temporary. When you have permanent immigrants coming, there's lots of vetting that just doesn't happen uh that's required when for a permanent immigrant. And that's one of the problems is this has become a a program for permanent immigration that doesn't do all that vetting.
▶ 1:04:52So I just want to respond in regards to Mr. Williams testimony and thank you for that testimony. You referred to the wealth gap and you are correct and part of the reason for the wealth gap is those business owners that you were referencing have brought in cheap labor and it's kept labor rates down as a result of bringing cheap labor in. when you have 10 million people that came in under the last in the last four years um that's going to drive uh wages down and you commented about the inability uh to act by Congress.
▶ 1:05:22This body acted this body acted last session to put in place a strong immigration reform. We did do that. I'll yield back.
▶ 1:05:31Gentleman yields. Chair recognizes the ranking member. Miss Jaipal.
▶ 1:05:34Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I mentioned, temporary protected status is a bipartisan program. Um, and it allows individuals from countries facing war, unrest, and natural disaster to remain in the United States until it's safe for them to return to their home countries. And these are individuals, as Mr. Williams testified to with work authorization, who have put down roots in their communities, followed the legal processes that are available to them. These are not the worst of the worst that Trump claimed he'd go after.
▶ 1:06:03And yet this administration is well on its way to stripping the lawful status of over 1 million people by early next year. Mr. Williams, very powerful testimony. Thank you. Um TPS recipients work in a variety of sectors experiencing workforce shortages including child care and construction.
▶ 1:06:23And as you uh as the president of the international union of painters and allied trades, can you discuss the impact that the TPS terminations are having on the work sites where your union members work and on the broader
▶ 1:06:39For sure. And I I would also add hospitality too as a hospitality very important industry that could see unprecedented worker shortages. But, you know, in speaking to our members on a regular and and listen, our members are just like the rest of this country, very divided around immigration. Let's not kid ourselves. But our members never looked at those brothers and sisters that they worked side by side with in some very dangerous dangerous working conditions as people that were considered here unlawfully.
▶ 1:07:10and the safety issues that can take place when you remove that many workers that have been trained and highly skilled to work on things like painting bridges, hanging off the side of buildings. You rely on one another. In our industry, you already are seeing the the fear over who are you going to work with side by side that you can trust the person you worked with for the last 15 years or somebody brand new in the industry.
▶ 1:07:35And there is definite fear both amongst our employers and our members about what's going to happen to our workers going forward.
▶ 1:07:42And I appreciated your uh challenging the notion that these are low-skilled workers because you have invested a lot of money into training people and they bring extremely valuable skills to the job. Um I also want to talk about uh the effect that the Trump administration's indiscriminate immigration enforcement is having on your union members. Do people feel safe coming into work?
▶ 1:08:06No. I mean, we have we have had horror story after horror story of members of ours that have been granted status in this country that have been targeted on the job site for removal, followed to their homes and on the way to work, being pulled over by local law enforcement and being detained only not to be heard from again.
▶ 1:08:24You know, what is going on in our country right now should alarm all of us and should really bring back to the middle a conversation on how we can deal with immigration as a whole and coupled with fixing our broken labor laws to give workers more power at the bargaining table.
▶ 1:08:40And you have lots of members who are also of varied immigration statuses, including US citizens, green card holders, others. What do you hear from them about their feelings about coming to work even though they're maybe US citizens or green card holders?
▶ 1:08:56Genuine fear in in certain instances. And I and I can tell you this in Southern California and Los Angeles ever since the National Guard has been called up. Our members are in fear of even gathering in large groups. We've had to cancel our union meetings, which have been a tradition of ours for over 130 years for fear of being targeted just by by the way they look. As you know, being on TPS carries a lot of uncertainty.
▶ 1:09:22You only get your your uh status for 12 to 18month renewal periods. And in your testimony, you mentioned the importance of providing a path to citizenship for TPS holders. Can you explain why you as the general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades and the AFL CIO large thinks that this think that this is so important for us to do
▶ 1:09:44because it would remove this question of temporary that seems to be constantly thrown around when these workers have contributed to this country way more than they are given credit for and have been demonized based on that temporary status. They are members of our communities. They are parents. They are longstanding members of our unions.
▶ 1:10:07I want to give you a chance to respond to the gentleman across the aisle when he said, "Well, the problem with wealth inequality and the wealth gap is really, you know, uh the fact that we've got these uh these workers here." I just wondered if you wanted to say anything to that.
▶ 1:10:21It's it's the biggest misnomer out there. give workers more power at the bargaining table over their own economic standing and you'll see that income gap shorten um for sure. And I realize I'm out of time.
▶ 1:10:33Oh, that's good. You see, some people pay attention to that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a unanimous consent
▶ 1:10:41Uh since Mr. Salasi was announced as a witness, we've been inundated with unsolicited outreach from people including the mayor and Charloroy.
▶ 1:10:49So, so what is your what is your request? um and explaining that his views are not representative of the community. And so I'm asking unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement from Kristen Hopkins, the president of the Charloroy Burough
▶ 1:11:04Without objection.
▶ 1:11:06Um and I'm asking for unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement from Reverend Sharon Woomer, a pastor in Charoy, explaining how the termination of TPS
▶ 1:11:16without explanation or or else or else I will read my my
▶ 1:11:21on the entire community. Do you either want someone's going to object or you going to are you going to
▶ 1:11:26I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the statement from Travis Ver Verek the executive director of McKe's Rock Community Development Corporation and a volunteer at a church in Charlotte. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the statement from Tim Maddox, a researcher and faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh. And I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement from Nancy J.
▶ 1:11:52Ellis, the former mayor and newly reelected mayor of the Burrow of Charoy, who said, "Mr. Salaska's opinions are biased and will not get a fair view."
▶ 1:12:03No, I object. If you're going to read it, then I'm going to object.
▶ 1:12:07I You gave him an extra minute, so I want to make sure that we are being fair about the person who is testifying, making sure people understand that. You put in you put in four. You got to put in four and then you had to read the statement which you know clearly goes beyond the parameters of normal conduct forum. Yeah.
▶ 1:12:27Let me let me do it again. I ask unanimous consent to record.
▶ 1:12:30The gentle I recognize the gentleman from New Jersey,
▶ 1:12:33Mr. Vandrew.
▶ 1:12:35Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um first of all, Mr. Williams, I'm glad to see you here. I support your union. In fact, I'm proud. I've got a a big plaque in in one of my offices from the painters. Um, I'm saying this to you respectfully. There are a lot of members that you have that would thoroughly, intensely, completely disagree with what you say and I hope you meet out with all the locals and all the people that are really doing the job and really working hard.
▶ 1:13:03I just want you to know that uh temporary protected status was created with a noble cause in mind. It was meant to reflect America at its best. A compassionate but lawful way for our country to assist those going through unavoidable disaster. And just as importantly, it was meant to be temporary. That's why it has that name. Congress was clear about it from the very beginning. TPS was never ever intended to be permanent.
▶ 1:13:33It was never meant to be a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship. It was never intended to replace asylum. And it was never intended to become an open-end program that expands indefinitely without accountability. That's just wrong. When TPS is limited in scope, limited in time, and tied directly to real conditions on the ground, it has worked. And we've seen that. It's America at its best.
▶ 1:13:58In the late 1990s, the United States provided temporary protection to hundreds of thousands of Kosvars fleeing a brutal contact. They came to America. They were here for a limited time. It was tied directly to conditions on the ground. And when the conflict ended, they went home. That is the way it was supposed to work. And it's supposed to look that way. It helps people through a genuine emergency. It's the right thing to do. But that's not what's happening now.
▶ 1:14:27Designations are repeatedly extended. Entire countries now remain under TPS for decades at a long time. long long after the original crisis has passed. And the message this sends is unmistakable. If you can make it here, eventually the rules will allow you to bend and to stay here. And that's wrong because so many people have come here legally and worked so hard to be here.
▶ 1:14:52And we value immigration and we value those immigrants that came here and we think that they have value always, but we're misusing the system and it disrespect those who do it the right and the communities. The councilman talked about it. These places were never asked if they wanted to do this. They were never consulted. They were never given the resources to absorb decisions made in DC. As usual, schools are overwhelmed. Hospitals are strained. Police and first responders and stretched thin.
▶ 1:15:22And who pays it all? The hard work working men and women, many of them members of unions that are tired of it. We care about people in crisis and we care also about respecting the law. So that's why this hearing matters. Mr. Chairman, thank you for doing this. We appreciate it. It's exactly what I look forward to today discussing this. I'm going to ask quick questions because I don't want to run out of time. Forgive me for this. I wish we had an hour to go through this, but we don't from each member here.
▶ 1:15:52So, I'm going to ask a question. I'm going to ask a yes or a no. And first, I'm going to ask Mr. Fishman just a yes or a no. was temporary protected status intended by Congress to last for decades.
▶ 1:16:06Thank you. Yet we have TPS designations that have lasted more than three decades. Is that correct? Yes or no?
▶ 1:16:15At least two.
▶ 1:16:18Two to three decades.
▶ 1:16:19Yeah. Yes.
▶ 1:16:21Was TPS ever intended to become a permanent alternative to asylum or lawful permanent residency?
▶ 1:16:27No. Was it intended to be an alternative to legal immigration, which we love?
▶ 1:16:36Did Congress envision eligibility dates being repeatedly moved forward to cover people who arrived long after the original disaster? Yes or no?
▶ 1:16:46And what practice has occurred repeatedly under current re recent administrations? Is that correct?
▶ 1:16:51Yes. If a program lasts for decades and cannot realistically end, is it still temporary in any meaningful sense? Yes or no?
▶ 1:17:01For Mr. Rogers.
▶ 1:17:03Has TPS is currently administered remain limited in scope and duration as the statute requires?
▶ 1:17:11So the program is no longer operating as Congress, this body designed it. Am I correct in saying that?
▶ 1:17:19Yes. Do repeated extensions and redesations of TPS create incentives for additional illegal immigration?
▶ 1:17:28So TPS is no longer just responding to emergencies. It is shaping future migration decisions illegally. Is that
▶ 1:17:36So in practice once TPS is granted it really results in departure ever
▶ 1:17:44No, it doesn't result in departure.
▶ 1:17:45Okay. I don't have any more time. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you. Um, Miss Scandlin,
▶ 1:17:52thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, yeah, interesting hearing. Um, despite this administration's worst rhetoric about going after the worst of the worst when it comes to immigration, time and again, we've seen that's just not true.
▶ 1:18:07And nowhere is that more clear than what we see happening with respect to the TPS program where this administration has targeted people who have been here legally sometimes for many many years and have suddenly had their legal status ripped out from under them. All so that Steven Miller can try to meet his deportation quotas. You know, in my district, across the country, Venezuelans, Haitians, Afghans, and others living here under TPS status have had the rug pulled out from under them.
▶ 1:18:37TPS is a bipartisan program created by Congress, which allows people from countries facing war, unrest, natural disasters to stay in the US until it's safe to return. The fact that this administration is basically declaring war on Venezuela and simultaneously saying that Venezuelans can't stay here anymore is truly through the looking glass. Um but you know, we're not expecting consistency from this administration. Now, Mr.
▶ 1:19:06Salashi raised a number of points which um I am from Pennsylvania, although the other side of Pennsylvania, and it just didn't match up with what I know about that area. Um, and I started pulling up some of the articles that I've read about Charoy and and reviewing the materials that have been entered into the record and and you know, the public record indicates a very different picture that Charoy is a a place with a large meat packing plant, which is not a job that a lot
▶ 1:19:36of Americans seem to want to apply for anymore, but that they ended up having a large Haitian immigration population, uh, start working in the meat packing plant. And as Mr. Salashi indicated, there was federal enforcement of the fact that there was a contractor there who was bringing people in, illegally transporting them, um, illegally housing them, failing to pay wages, failing to do tax reports.
▶ 1:20:02So whereas we have reams of data, reams of uh, studies showing that immigrants in our country are a net economic benefit, we saw something that I think Mr. Williams had alluded to, which is that um unscrupulous employers use people's immigration status to undermine working conditions for everyone.
▶ 1:20:24So, we saw someone get prosecuted and convicted in Charlotte of uh bringing in immigrant labor, folks who were not getting paid what they were supposed to, which presumably undermined wages for folks in the community. And that's exactly what this kind of chaos in the immigration system can enable.
▶ 1:20:44But instead of going off the going after the folks who are trying to work and do a job, maybe we should be going after the employers who are creating these kinds of conditions and exploiting people in this way. Now, I did want to just um mention something along the same same uh topic. in Philadelphia.
▶ 1:21:03I've had the opportunity to see a great partnership between the Welcoming Center, which is a local nonprofit that promotes economic opportunities and assimilation for uh newcomers to our country, and the AFL CIO and the shipyard, the Philly shipyard in our region. We have a shipyard where we have billions of dollars of investment going to ramp up American ship building. and we need welders and we need ship builders and we need people who can outfit ships.
▶ 1:21:34And so our labor community and the um welcoming center said, "Wait a minute, we have some really smart folks here who have work authorization. They are here legally. Um let's see if we can help them transition into this jobs." What what can you tell us about those kind of projects, Mr. Williams? Yeah, those are the the projects that we speak of when we talk about the construction industry and the need for, you know, a workforce that wants to work in that industry.
▶ 1:22:00You know, we don't talk enough about how this country has treated, you know, the way the construction industry has been a pathway for people to the middle class. And and you know, we've demonized those that work with our hands and have forced people into this false notion that just going to college is the only way to make a living and to achieve the middle class. But you know what?
▶ 1:22:23On some levels, it is true cuz in certain aspects of our industry, when workers are forced to work in such low wage conditions, it is hard to sustain your families. And so people have walked away from the construction industry because they've been it's been embred in them throughout high school that that industry is not an industry that you can support your families on. And it is a real problem that we have.
▶ 1:22:47Well, certainly an an effort we're with you on trying to make sure that people understand there's a different pathway and that the trades are a great way to go. I think it is another inconsistency of this immigration enforcement effort that they are going after people on construction sites, going after people going to Home Depot to be day labors, going after people who are going to work. These are not the worst of the worst. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. Gil,
▶ 1:23:20thank you, Mr. chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for for coming here and taking to the time taking the time uh to have another good hearing on uh the dangers of mass migration and what ultimately amounts to as a form of backdoor amnesty. Um just a second ago, we were hearing from our our colleagues on the other side of the aisle talking about the uh the benefits of a TPS system for communities all over the globe.
▶ 1:23:47And I think that we need to reenter our conversation and ask what type of immigration system benefits the American people. We hear a lot about and we heard we've heard in the news recently about the number of Afghanis for instance who have come into the United States under TPS or other various forms. And I think the question is that we need to ask is how does that benefit our people?
▶ 1:24:13How does it benefit American citizens to bring people in from a part of the globe that is the most backward perhaps the most backward part of the globe? A poor an area where heterastic rape is considered culturally acceptable where women are chatt. How does it benefit American citizens to bring these people into our country?
▶ 1:24:38We got to ask the same question about aliens who are coming into to America. Do we really have an obligation to throw away our cultural inheritance in order to promote some sort of globalist open borders agenda? That is insane. We need to be looking out for our people and not for the rest of the globe. But with that said, happy to uh jump into questions here. Mr. Fishman, thank you uh for your testimony earlier.
▶ 1:25:08Um you you talked about the legislative history of the TPS program, how the author of the bill establishing it um claimed a substantial majority will return voluntarily and this bill according to them provides a mechanism to ensure this result. Has that turned out to be the case?
▶ 1:25:31that has um not been turned out to be the case in large measure because in most instances TPS has just been extended for years if not decades. So there's never any occasion uh to test it. Uh but when there was an occasion to test it, uh Chairman Smith back in the 1999 hearing asked the general counsel of the Immigration Naturalization Service, "Do you have any data on how many people actually returned uh when their TPS status went away?
▶ 1:26:01How many people you removed if they didn't voluntarily return?" The answer was, "Oh, I have no idea. We don't track that."
▶ 1:26:07Right. Right. TPS was intended to be temporary, at least ostensibly. Um, but we had a 25- year TPS status for Honduras since 1999 due to a a hurricane. Similarly, El Salvador was initially designated in March 2001 uh based on a series of earthquakes. The the current administration terminated TPS for Honduras. We still have uh that status for for El Salvador right now. I got another question for you, Mr. Mr. Fishman.
▶ 1:26:37Um the statute that you that you mentioned earlier clearly states quote there is no judicial review with respect to the designation or termination or extension of a designation of a foreign state. Um despite that we frequently see that open border groups sue to stop the Trump administration from terminating TPS designation uh including those that have been issued decades ago. I'm curious if you have any thoughts as to why they've been uh filing these lawsuits.
▶ 1:27:07uh well they clearly are filing the lawsuits in order to frustrate uh the uh operation of the TPS law which says if the conditions are no longer remaining it shall be terminated. So I think clearly that is the motivation.
▶ 1:27:23Got it. And ask you in in January of 2021 there were about 55,000 Haitian TPS beneficiaries in the United States. In January 2025, there were That's about a six times increase in just four years. The majority of these people simply just came into the country illegally.
▶ 1:27:45Uh they walked walked in, didn't have a visa, uh and were illegally parrolled by the Biden administration on a categorical basis as we understand. uh given this sort of alleged legal status. Let me ask you, did did the US government vet any of these individuals on an individual basis?
▶ 1:28:03Uh you know, they may have looked at in databases, but as Rodney Scott, uh pres uh DHS Secretary Mayorcus' border patrol chief said, for events that occurred outside the US, we really have no idea. There's no data in the databases regarding those events. So, an alien could be a saint. An alien could be a serial killer. Those are his words. We have no idea because there's nothing to look at in the databases.
▶ 1:28:34Thank you.
▶ 1:28:39Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. So, as we've heard um and as we know, US law permits TPS designation for nationals of a country when ongoing armed conflict poses a serious threat to their personal safety.
▶ 1:28:59So, I recently sent a letter to the administration with the ranking member calling out the hypocrisy of revoking TPS for South Sudan, a country plagued by armed clashes with DHA DHS claiming that there have been improvements in the civil safety outlook.
▶ 1:29:20But at the very same time, the administration has designated South Sudan as a level four travel advisory zone, do not travel, stating that the armed conflict is ongoing and includes fighting between various political and ethnic groups.
▶ 1:29:40And as Miss Scanland um referenced, at the same time, the Trump administration has revoked TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of of Venezuelans while escalating actions that could lead us into war with their home country, which we had a bipartisan briefing on Mr. Williams. President Trump campaigned on going after the quote worst of the worst when it comes to immigrants.
▶ 1:30:10But to be eligible for TPS, you have to not only be from one of these countries that is designated for TPS, you also have to meet strict criminal background checks and be revetted every 18 months to ensure that you are still eligible for TPS. Are the TPS holders that work with your union and your colleagues the kinds of people that Trump has called the worst of the worst?
▶ 1:30:40Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you could call somebody who pays their taxes, who works on the books, works in our industry the worst of the worst. And I was offended by Congressman Van Drew saying that our membership supports pulling the rug on TPS.
▶ 1:30:57When we speak to our membership, that is their brother, that is their sister, that is not somebody who was here unlawfully, that is somebody who is here lawfully under the protections that were granted by this body and given every chance to build an American lifestyle for them and their families.
▶ 1:31:18Well, I really appreciate that, Mr. Williams. We've had a bunch of ICE raids and um CBP raids in my area of North Carolina. And what's resulted is people who do have legal status being picked up, citizens being picked up, construction sites completely shut down. Now, I I'm not I I actually was born in uh Pennsylvania, but I'm not from your area of Pennsylvania.
▶ 1:31:46But let me tell you, the research triangle of North Carolina is a growing area and we have active projects and we cannot have people who are here legally scared to go to work and have these construction projects shut down. Um, I just want with before we talk a little bit about that, so get ready, Mr. Williams, I want to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the statement from uh Nancy J.
▶ 1:32:15Ellis, the former mayor and newly reelected mayor of the Burough of Charoy, who said that this the testimony of Mr. Kalash and his opinions are biased and will not give a fair view of the Haitian community of
▶ 1:32:28Is that objection?
▶ 1:32:29Um, so with with the time that you have a little bit about a minute, Mr. Williams, talk about the effects on construction projects, infrastructure projects when people who have legal status are afraid to show up to work.
▶ 1:32:43Yeah. not just afraid to show up to work but but you know leaving the industry because how the industry itself is being targeted. The effects that we have is it creates an even larger worker shortage in this country. Skilled workers that have been trained, that have been vetted, that have worked in the industry for well over 10, 15 years. The the effects are dramatic.
▶ 1:33:04And you know, as a labor leader, I'm here talking about the human aspect of this on our membership, but I can tell you our partners, which are our employers in our industry, those that directly employ TPS recipients are saying, "Wait a second. This is not what we thought we voted for.
▶ 1:33:24And most of those employers supported this current president of the United States and have been supporters of many people on the other side of the aisle than the Democratic party. And that's the truth, you know, and and they are concerned about where they're going to find a workforce into the future.
▶ 1:33:42Thank you. And I yield back.
▶ 1:33:44Uh Mr. Biggs.
▶ 1:33:46Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh Mr. Rogers. Uh, temporary protected status. The T is for temporary. Um, and let's just talk about this. The status is granted to people who are in an ongoing armed with a foreign state. Is that correct?
▶ 1:34:05Yeah. And so it isn't could lead us into war. Could be a war. Could be a conflict. That doesn't count. Is that
▶ 1:34:13Correct. Armed conflict is a is a statutory term. There has to be a war going on. Yeah, foreign state requests for TBS because it temporarily cannot handle the return of its nationals due to an environmental disaster. Environmental disaster, right? So, in some cases might be a an earthquake, um a volcanic eruption in some places we've seen. When that is over and that has been treated, that situation that warranted the TPS status dissipates. Isn't that true?
▶ 1:34:43Yeah. Then you get to extraordinary and temporary conditions which uh could be on a on a not on a group basis but on a particularized basis for individuals coming through. Uh maybe it could be a health a health situation even this temporary protected status where they're going to grant you parole basically to come in for for a period of time.
▶ 1:35:07But getting to this thing, we just we just heard a witness testify that these people are are get a criminal background check. Do they get a criminal background check?
▶ 1:35:20It's impossible to do a criminal background check about their uh activities in their home country. So if you with their coming in and they're getting TPS status under CHV, if you remember that program that was given by Biden that it was impossible to do a criminal background check because we don't have access to Venezuela's records. If they're coming from Somalia, we don't have access to Somalia because Somalia doesn't even have records. So it's just BS to say everybody's fully vetted. They are. We know. We know cuz we don't know.
▶ 1:35:51To say otherwise means you have never been to the border and watched this happen. Should never testify to something you haven't seen or don't know for sure. So when we have V CHMV program, you got people in they're coming in. How many people uh uh that have TPS are illegally in the country? They started off illegally in the country.
▶ 1:36:15I don't have the exact numbers. I'm not sure anyone really tracks that, but it's a majority of them. It's a vast majority of them.
▶ 1:36:20So the 1.2 two or whatever million it is. The majority got into this country illegally there. For instance, uh how many came in illegally? We don't know. A lot, more than half are the estimates. Haitians, how many came in? More than half under the CHMV program. CHMV program was not authorized to allow anyone in legally.
▶ 1:36:47CG&V program simply said, "We're not going to enforce the law." Right? That's what happened under the Biden administration. Now, how many of them got TPS status? We know that there's over 600,000 Venezuelans who got TPS status, the vast majority of them under the Biden administration CHMV program. Right. That's Isn't that true, Mr.
▶ 1:37:15Correct. And uh the justification was uh poverty and just difficult conditions in the country. It wasn't even one of the things we're talking about environmental conditions or war. It was
▶ 1:37:23none of the statutory provisions.
▶ 1:37:25Correct. They they they brought in that extraordinary circumstances way past what what what the statute actually
▶ 1:37:30So we we have we've got going back El Salvador. El Salvador, by the way, I've I've been to El Salvador in the last two years. It is now one of the safest countries in the world. You could go ask their leadership and they'll say, ' Andy, we'll leave you in this alley overnight. You might get a little uncomfortable because it's a little bit cold, but guess what, Andy? Nobody's going to harm or molest you. It's safe. This is the safest country. And guess what?
▶ 1:38:00You've got 230,000 El Salvadorans that have been here for 25 plus years. That ain't temporary anymore. that becomes something more accessible than a refugee claim or an asylum claim because it becomes permanent and that becomes the next question.
▶ 1:38:20They have to come in every 6 to 18 months for review and uh under what authority do we extend do do are they extended protected status? Under what authority do we essentially make it permanent? So why I mean for instance Syrians uh 20 years uh El Salvadorans 25 years under what authority Mr. Rogers if there is
▶ 1:38:44There is none. The statute requires re-evaluation every six to 18 months. And what the Trump administration is doing is just reevaluating and finding that those conditions aren't met. It's not it's not pulling anything back from people. It's just deciding not to renew something that the statute requires them not to renew.
▶ 1:38:58Thank you. Yield back.
▶ 1:38:59Gentle time is expired. Mr. Garcia.
▶ 1:39:01Thank you. Uh Chairman uh Mcccleintoch. The Trump administration and its loyalists in Congress continue their efforts to persecute immigrants and undermine our legal immigration system. Today, their target is temporary protective status.
▶ 1:39:17They are here to scapegoat and demonize people with TPS to justify Trump and Miller's decision to send a million people with legal status back to countries with extreme levels of armed conflict and other conditions. As my colleagues have pointed out, many TPS recipients have lived in the US for decades. There are friends, neighbors, and community members.
▶ 1:39:44They contribute roughly $21 billion to our economy and they pay over five billion in in taxes to federal, state, and local entities. But Republicans don't care about their economic contributions or about supporting this engine of economic growth. They're committed to a xenophobic agenda that blames immigrants for every problem in society.
▶ 1:40:10It's the same strategy that Vice President JD Vance used when he lied about Haitians with TPS eating people's pets. It's the same strategy that Donald Trump uses when he refers to other nations as quote hole countries end of quote.
▶ 1:40:30Republicans are doing this because they have no plan on affordability, on health care, on education, on housing or public safety, or fixing our broken immigration system. Their only plan is to blame hardworking immigrants. Their assault on immigrants is fundamentally an assault on workers. And it's a continuation of the administration's anti-worker policies.
▶ 1:40:54The president has gutted agencies overseeing occupational safety standards, lowered the minimum wage for federal contractors, terminated Department of Labor grants that fought child labor and supported workers rights, and stripped federal workers of their collective bargaining power. Mr. Williams, thank you for being here today and for your common sense.
▶ 1:41:18Can you talk about how going after lawful working immigrants like TPS recipients [snorts] fits into the anti-worker agenda and how does aggressive immigration enforcement disrupt work sites and destabilize
▶ 1:41:35Yeah, thank you, Congressman, and and thank you for your words about the real impacts that the American workers faced. It's not the immigrant worker that our American workers should be worried about. And it's corporate America who has truly exploited the broken labor laws of this country coupled with a broken immigration system.
▶ 1:41:55It is probably the number one factor and at least in the construction industry that has led to the decline in wages, real wages being earned, the ability to afford the communities that they live in, to be able to retire with dignity, to be able to provide health care.
▶ 1:42:13All these assaults on the working class have been systematically put in place and and by design yet we don't talk about who the real people that are destroying the working class in this country and it's corporate America's insatiable desire to want to put profits over people and that includes immigr immigrant workers as well and have been unwilling victims of that system now for generations. since I'm 47 years old.
▶ 1:42:44It's been going on my entire life.
▶ 1:42:50And then the disruption of work sites,
▶ 1:42:52the work sites in this country have been disrupted most recently based on these immigration raids and continue to be disrupted. Yet that you never see the person employing them put in a back of a van. You've never seen them put on TV as people that are exploiting workers. We have lost our way in the way we view
▶ 1:43:16Do these raids at work sites make workers safer or does it put them at
▶ 1:43:23Puts them at extreme risk. But it listen, you can't work sla safely when you're worried about being targeted for removal. You know, the truth is people just won't show up to work, which we've seen in North Carolina, in Florida, where you have a a disproportionate amount of TPS holders, too, in the state of Florida, Texas, and New York. Thank you so much. This administration's TPS policy is a disgrace.
▶ 1:43:50Congress should act and pass the American Dream and Promise Act, which would provide stability, a path to citizenship, and a boost to the economy. Thank you, and I yield back. Mr. Kn.
▶ 1:44:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I I think it's I think it defies common sense and logic that the the talking point that the previous uh questioner keeps repeating that regardless of where you come from, if you come here legally or illegally, you will lead to a robust economy. It doesn't matter if you're literate, doesn't matter if you're skilled, doesn't matter if you're a criminal, doesn't matter if you're a member of a cartel. There is just a cart launch statement that if you come to this country from anywhere other than America, America will prosper.
▶ 1:44:33It's just such a reckless statement. It defies logic. It is not borne out in the statistics. So many people from around the world come here and live off of American charity. They live off of criminal livelihoods. They live off of fraud as we've seen in Minnesota. This idea that every immigrant is a force multiplier regardless of legal status is a force multiplier for good. is just an absolute farce. And Mr.
▶ 1:44:57Rogers, I also want to talk to you about this this idea that the Biden administration was a responsible arbiter of legal immigration policy. From my understanding, from where I sit, they used uh the temporary protected program, protected status program to usher in huge amounts of unvetted people from all over the world. Is that correct?
▶ 1:45:18Yeah, that's correct.
▶ 1:45:19Explain how they did that. Sorry. Go
▶ 1:45:21It's not just temporary protected status. They they abused scores of immigration laws. They abused the parole uh power. Uh they they stretched every statute they could way beyond breaking point to justify illegal entry of 10 to 20 million illegal immigrants.
▶ 1:45:34And how many people were ushered in under the TPS program?
▶ 1:45:38The TPS program, I believe, went up from 400,000 to 1.3 million. So about a million people, just under a million.
▶ 1:45:43Mr. Williams, just off off the cuff, do you believe that that was done
▶ 1:45:48because this country has no comprehensive immigration reform? I do believe it was the only path to provide people with true work authorization in this country.
▶ 1:45:57I'm I'm asking, do you think that Joe Biden operated responsibly using TPS to usher in almost a million3 people into the country?
▶ 1:46:05I'm saying the system is broken as as it stands now. And I don't believe President Biden authored in anybody. We have people coming into this country with no pathway.
▶ 1:46:15He did usher in I don't think personally
▶ 1:46:18his administration did.
▶ 1:46:19Fair. Is that a fair use of the program to bring in over a million people who are not vetted
▶ 1:46:25when there when there are over and approaching 20 million workers in this country that are coming to this country without any system to greet them at our borders and to come in legally and the TPS program has been the one pathway for people to receive work authorization. I believe that the extension of TPS should be considered even further by this body. You're avoiding the question. Is granting TPS to a million unvetted people responsible?
▶ 1:46:51I do believe it is.
▶ 1:46:52You believe it is?
▶ 1:46:53I do.
▶ 1:46:53Okay. Well, that's a very irrational position that you take. Do you think that people who were brought in under that program cause harm to the country?
▶ 1:47:00I do not because they have work
▶ 1:47:03Not one.
▶ 1:47:04You're speaking in very broad terms. You don't think one person who came in under Biden's immigration recklessness has harmed the country. You asked, "Does the process of TPS cause harm?" Do I have any any understanding of one person? I don't think it's a fair question to ask.
▶ 1:47:22No, I asked, did did the way did the Biden administration use TPS
▶ 1:47:27I believe TPS is the most responsible way for immigrants to this country to come and work in our country legally.
▶ 1:47:36Did the Biden administration use the program responsibly? It's beyond any shadow of a doubt that he ushered in a million people with no vetting.
▶ 1:47:45I believe they did.
▶ 1:47:46You believe they did?
▶ 1:47:47I do.
▶ 1:47:47Okay. All right. Now, Mr. Rogers, back to you.
▶ 1:47:52Please explain for the for the room how that program was abused under the Biden
▶ 1:47:57Well, first of all, they they use [clears throat] protextual justifications to to grant TPS, for example, to Haiti and to Venezuela. They they just use general poverty and difficult conditions in the country, which is never what TPS was designed for. And to the point about needing workers, we actually have work visas. We have the H2 visa which lets temporary workers enter the country lawfully. There is a process to bring those workers. We don't need a TPS to do that. There's no reason for that.
▶ 1:48:19Sure. And in terms of the abuses, again, we see this uh this talking point echoed repeatedly that vetting is thorough. Can you please dispel that notion uh as it was applied the last four years?
▶ 1:48:31There the vetting is impossible. As we've said, you can't when a when an an immigrant applies for a work visa or for an immigrant visa, they have to get a police certificate from their local police station in their home country. None of that happens under TPS. If you look at the form, it's just a bunch of yes, no questions. Have you ever done X or Y, and they self-report,
▶ 1:48:49right? So, basically what we've concluded looking at Biden's administration administering of the TPS program is that it fits within a broader narrative that there really should not be any restriction for any person who wants to come into the United States. Is that fair?
▶ 1:49:02Yes. I yield back.
▶ 1:49:10Oh, I didn't hear. I'm sorry. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. President Trump has made it clear that he only opposes lawful immigration when non-white people immigrate to the United States. His immigration agenda isn't about public safety or economic stability or jobs. It's about racism. It was racist during his first administration. It's racist now. And like his first administration, he's hired a bunch of racists to carry it out. In fact, I'mma pause here really quickly.
▶ 1:49:38I know we're talking about TPS, but I don't know if anyone else has mentioned the fact that ICE agents were literally dragging a pregnant woman just this week in a viral video. So, don't tell me that this isn't about cruelty because it is. Moving on. The president is now on record admitting to calling majority black and brown nations quote hole countries. He consistently refers to black and brown people as quote low IQ, stupid or nasty.
▶ 1:50:08His agenda is about one thing, giving racial preference to specific people seeking to immigrate to America, which is illegal and unconstitutional. But nevertheless, they are going to keep trying to get y'all to believe that immigrants are the cause of all your problems. But here's the truth. Immigrants are not responsible for a billionaire CEO refusing to increase your wage. The corporation you work for isn't replacing your job with artificial intelligent intelligence because of Haitian refugees.
▶ 1:50:38Your landlord isn't increasing your rent because someone who's fleeing gang violence in Central America moved into your community. A Palestinian kid who was afforded a scholarship to study at an American university isn't responsible for your child's tuition increasing. Latino farm workers aren't responsible for prices of your groceries increasing. Let's be clear, blaming migrants and deporting migrants and ending TPS won't improve the lives of most Americans.
▶ 1:51:07As you can see, we're in the middle of the largest, most inhumane deportation program in American history. And guess what? Housing is still unaffordable. Health care is still too expensive. Groceries are still too expensive. Wages aren't keeping up with inflation. Jobs are still being outsourced. So maybe it's not the immigrants. Maybe it's the failed Republican policies.
▶ 1:51:33In my state of Texas, the Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the Governor's Mansion. In the United States, the Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. Maybe it's the fact that Republicans would rather give permanent tax cuts to billionaires, but won't even give middle class Americans temporary health care benefits. Maybe it's the fact that President Trump has the wealthiest cabinet in American history, and these people are out of touch with the American public. Now, Mr.
▶ 1:52:02Williams, will ending TPS help or hurt the finishing trades industry your union members work
▶ 1:52:09It will hurt the construction industry as a whole. Let me tell you this or let me ask you this. This ain't in here. Has it already hurt the construction
▶ 1:52:19It has because of the fear and
▶ 1:52:22There's a lot of fear. There are workers that are not showing up to their jobs regardless of their status because of how immigration is being carried out under this administration. Is that
▶ 1:52:32That is correct.
▶ 1:52:33Will ending TPS help or hurt job site
▶ 1:52:37It will hurt job site safety. Will ending TPS help or hurt affordability in our communities?
▶ 1:52:43It will hurt affordability in our
▶ 1:52:46Exactly. As people are complaining about the fact that housing is up, you've got to think about what those input costs look like. Those input costs besides the fact that he's been reckless and ridiculous and not been reigned in as it relates to the tariffs. And we know that we get a lot of lumber out of Canada. We want to fight with Canada. We want to fight with Mexico. And then we want to tell people that have come here and are going through the process. And I'm not going to say that any process is perfect.
▶ 1:53:14But the last time that I checked, Republicans continue to offer us concepts of a plan instead of actual plans because they would rather campaign on the chaos instead of fixing it. Listen, none of us sitting here, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, wants to be unsafe in our country. I want to be clear. I don't want a criminal in my neighborhood either.
▶ 1:53:34But going after all of these countries, when we talk about um it looks like they want to end TPS for Burma and El Salvador and Ethiopia and Haiti and Lebanon and Somalia and South Sudan and Sudan and Syria. Um they actually do have Ukraine got extended a little bit and Yemen got extended a little bit. But the vast majority of these countries, there's one thing in common. A lot of those people from those countries have a little bit of melanin in their skin.
▶ 1:54:03Uh, with that I will
▶ 1:54:07Gentle lady yields back. Uh, Mr. Hunter.
▶ 1:54:10Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 1:54:12For decades, temporary protected status has been systematically distorted far beyond what Congress intended. What was meant to be a short-term humanitarian measure has become a backdoor pathway for illegal aliens to remain in the United States indefinitely, often with full work authorization and no meaningful enforcement of the law.
▶ 1:54:32Under the Biden Harris administration, this abuse has not only continued, it has 1.5 million uh TPS recipients are now in the United States, a number that has quadrupled over the past four years of the Biden administration. This reckless expansion was not authorized by Congress and it imposes real and growing costs on American communities.
▶ 1:54:56Uh towns like Springfield, Ohio, Charlotte Po, Pennsylvania, Loganport, Indiana, towns that never consented to become immigration test cases are now overwhelmed. Local leaders and residents are pleading for help as thousands of TPS recipients pour into their communities with little warning and no federal support and often, as we have heard today, stay forever. These communities are reporting rising crime and traffic incidents.
▶ 1:55:23School systems are stretched beyond the breaking point and public health concerns including reappearance of diseases once eradicated in the United States are now with us again. Hospitals are being pushed to their limits. Um Mr.
▶ 1:55:40Jalaski um has the arrival, you know, when I was in medical school, residency, fellowship, internal medicine, I think I saw a total of maybe maybe half a dozen cases of tuberculosis and they were generally in either elderly homeless people, they were in people who were immune compromised and some of them were were in immigrants.
▶ 1:56:03Has the arrival of TPS recipients in your community coincided with the reemergence of diseases that we generally don't see in America?
▶ 1:56:12To the best of my knowledge, there has been a couple of cases that have come to the forefront.
▶ 1:56:17Have you seen those in in uh Charroy?
▶ 1:56:24Have you seen some some cases in
▶ 1:56:27Yeah. To the best of my knowledge, um there has been a few cases
▶ 1:56:30in schools.
▶ 1:56:32So presumably young healthy healthy people bringing in TB. Do you know whether those have been multi multi-drug resistance TB cases? That's been a problem recently.
▶ 1:56:42I do not do not know that. Have
▶ 1:56:44are there other ways the TPS program has affected American students who attend your schools?
▶ 1:56:50Really can't get into too much from the school district. I know that they were frustrated uh at the very beginning. They were not receiving any funding nor did the bureau receive any funding. uh they did through um I guess uh months, years they received a little bit for uh to to help uh with the with the influx of im immigrants, but the burrow has still not received anything.
▶ 1:57:14And has has the have the schools had to hire more English learner uh uh teachers um because of this influx?
▶ 1:57:24To the best of my knowledge, yes.
▶ 1:57:26Okay. Um Mr. Mr. Rogers. Um 1.5 um million uh TPS recipients when deciding to award temporary protected status. Is any distinction made between people who have came come to this country legally or illegally?
▶ 1:57:45No, no distinction at all. And do you know the 1.5 this may be may this may have been in someone's testimony but is um do we know how that breaks down as people who have come here legally versus
▶ 1:57:58I don't have the specific breakdown but it it's generally agreed the vast majority are illegal
▶ 1:58:03and um it was I believe your testimony Somalia TPS status since 1991. I I I I had not yet enter finished my medical training in 1991. I had a lot more hair. Um what what in the world 911 is there any is is it in federal law some procedure to end uh temporary protected status at some point?
▶ 1:58:30Yeah. The the the designation of a country only lasts six to 18 months and then DHS is required to re-evaluate and decide whether to renew or not. So it's just been renewed every time it's come out. been renewed indiscriminately without any potent any like you know the earthquake was 15 years ago maybe maybe people could go home perhaps
▶ 1:58:49yeah until the Trump administration it was just renewed
▶ 1:58:51until the Trump administration okay well thank you very much for your testimony I yield back
▶ 1:58:56gentleman yields back Mr. Slatchy. Uh, would you like to respond to the drive by smear by Miss Ross that you're out of touch with your town?
▶ 1:59:05Could you repeat?
▶ 1:59:06Would you like to respond to the drive by smear we heard from Miss Ross a few minutes ago? I wish you would have let it into the record because uh, names that were delivered. Our current mayor is in full support of me. He's a he's a Republican mayor in town. There was claims that uh the future mayor um and they named her name uh Miss Ellis.
▶ 1:59:35Um she declared not to be the future mayor. There was a front page article that she was taking the seat on council and not mayor. She won both seats. So that was inaccurate as well
▶ 1:59:48Okay. Thank you. Uh Mr. fisherman. The statute clearly states that there is quote there is no judicial review with respect to the designation or termination or extension of of a foreign state on the TPS uh uh list. Despite that, we frequently see the open border groups sue the stop to stop the Trump administration from terminating TPS designations. How can that be the case and what should we do about it?
▶ 2:00:16Well, they do it uh some of these federal courts do it on theory that well that doesn't apply to constitutional violations. That doesn't apply to systemic issues independent of individual determinations. But the Supreme Court has stepped up this year and stayed a lot of those injunctions and allowed the Trump administration to actually carry forth the law and terminate uh where appropriate uh past designations of TPS.
▶ 2:00:44So, so the law in your opinion is clear. It's just the certain partisan judges who are abusing
▶ 2:00:50Well, I mean the the law could be made stronger uh if there was an opportunity to reform it, but even under the current language, uh it's a stretch and the Supreme Court has stepped in to prevent
▶ 2:01:02Mr. Rogers, what's your view of that?
▶ 2:01:05I think the law is very clear. It says no judicial review. I don't see how you can get any clearer than that.
▶ 2:01:11Uh Mr. Mr. Fisherman, this subcommittee has received extensive testimony about how illegal labor forces down the wages of American workers with whom that labor competes. As we flood these markets with illegal labor, the supply of labor increases, thus the wages for that labor decrease. What would you advise someone like, well, the Democratic witness who assures us he's looking out for the best interest of his members?
▶ 2:01:36I worked um when I worked for the subcommittee, we had many hearings on the delletterious effect on American workers uh of any race or ethnicity on mass lowskilled immigration. And not only uh does it lower wages, but the there's been a collapse in the
▶ 2:02:01that's simple economics, right?
▶ 2:02:02Yeah. a collapse in labor force
▶ 2:02:04Labor, the the price of that labor is suppressed or declines. It's a supply and demand function.
▶ 2:02:10Exactly. And the result is currently many working age Americans simply are dropped out of the labor force because of the the the wage rate that mass lowkilled
▶ 2:02:23and we're told that adding a million such people is a good thing for American workers that we we need them in in our shipyards and construction. temporary protective status is by its definition a temporary program. So are the Democrats tacitly telling us they intend to make it a permanent program? what they're saying is completely at odds with what the Democrats who championed TPS in 1990 promised TPS was for.
▶ 2:02:52Well, it seems to me that they want to make it a permit program, they ought to just say so and attempt to do that through legislation and level with the American people that this is their objective. And if you're an American construction worker or shipyard worker, you just have to suck it up and put up with suppressed wages indefinitely because after all, they're paying union due so the union bosses are happy. Is that essentially it?
▶ 2:03:15Exactly. If if you want amnesty, if that's your goal, call it what it is.
▶ 2:03:20Mr. Mr. Celesti, in your opinion, is TPS is is currently conceived uh in the best interest of the American people or is it more benefiting foreign nationals and business interests to want to exploit these populations for cheap labor regardless of any effects they have on the communities that these people resettle in?
▶ 2:03:38Yes, I absolutely agree with that.
▶ 2:03:40And what and your experience is is consistent with that in Charlotte as an elected official.
▶ 2:03:46Great. U I'm going to yield back and recognize Mr. Roy.
▶ 2:03:51Oh. Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Jaipal for unanimous consent request.
▶ 2:03:56Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record uh an article from Forward US called temporary protected status protects families while also boosting the US economy. Without
▶ 2:04:09Like to enter into the record uh Pennsylvania, this is from the Guardian. A Pennsylvania town is thriving with Haitian immigrants and is the latest target of Republican hate. Without
▶ 2:04:19like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an article from Democracy Dies in oh sorry, Washington Post uh called How Trump Warped and Weaponized a Small Pennsylvania Towns immigration story.
▶ 2:04:33And I'd like to enter into the record a an article from the American Business Immigration Coalition entitled Facts. Immigrants aren't stealing your jobs or lowering wages.
▶ 2:04:43Without objection,
▶ 2:04:45Mr. Oh, Mr. Hunt. Thank you so much and thank you witnesses for being here today. As of today, roughly 1.5 million people in the US have temporary protected status. Most of these TPS recipients entered the US during the Biden Harris administration. They permitted millions of undocumented individuals to enter our country under the pretense of quote unquote protection.
▶ 2:05:10what was once intended to temporarily help those who live in the in the countries that are in ongoing armed conflicts, serious natural disasters, or if aliens returning to their country of origin is not in the interest of the United States, has now become a way for Democrats to import their own voters as we have seen for the past four years.
▶ 2:05:32Nearly 725,000 TPS illegal migrants entered the country during the Biden Harris administration, often with little to no information provided about their reasons for entry. Illegals from Haiti, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Sudan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Many of these criminal aliens have claimed American lives. Innocent victims such as Lincoln Riley, Joselyn Nungury, Rachel Moren, and Nathaniel Baker.
▶ 2:05:57This must and it will stop and has stopped under the current The Trump administration has made remarkable progress, reaching its seventh consecutive months without illegal bording crossings, the fewest that we have seen in modern history of this great nation. Congress needs to act to make sure criminals, gang members, cartels, and terrorists never set foot on American soil.
▶ 2:06:22And as somebody that served and fought in combat for this great nation, that's exactly why I served this country and that's exactly why I continue to serve in the halls of Congress to continue to protect my fellow Americans. Mr. Shaloski, thank you for being here, sir. In your testimony, you stated that many residents in your town have serious concerns about housing capacity, safety resources, school support, and healthc care resources.
▶ 2:06:47You also made it clear that your city did not sign up to be used as a test subject. Let me make it clear. Your request to Congress, it's not absurd. It's not cruel, but rather reasonable and based on common sense. And I want to thank you for that. What your town has experienced is unfair. It's unjust. It's unamerican. With that being said, I want to give you some time to expand on how your common sense request will benefit your community and local residents.
▶ 2:07:18I think everything begins with communication and there wasn't any from the start. Uh if that would have been brought to the table, I think the dialogue would have became more healthier. Uh all this has caused is a lot of division and a lot of hate. Sorry to say that.
▶ 2:07:37Um I I I I feel that uh from the federal government to the state government um if again if this would have been handled more professionally, I think everyone at the table in our small community could have came up with a good solution.
▶ 2:07:59But being that we weren't permitted to be involved and they dumped these immigrants into our community and again I have compassion for them too. They're human beings as I stated but uh this went over and above um something that that should have been placed in a small town such as Shawy
▶ 2:08:20So are you xenophobic?
▶ 2:08:23Are you xenophobic?
▶ 2:08:25Are you xenophobic? Are you racist? Are you xenophobic? Do you hate do you hate immigrants? Do you hate people that come that come to this country looking for a better way of life? Do you hate them or
▶ 2:08:33sir? I have three biracial grandchildren who I love.
▶ 2:08:37Well, I'll be damned. So, this is literally about keeping your community safe and literally about what it means to be an American regardless of the way you look. It's about taking care of our citizens. Would you agree with that assessment, sir?
▶ 2:08:52Well, thank you very much for your passion. I really, really appreciate that. I got a minute left and just going to I want to end with this. Under the Biden administration, our country was invaded by illegal immigrants. Period. It was an invasion. Over 20 million people enter this country illegally, which is completely unacceptable. And now the Trump administration has taken decisive action to clean this mess up and to make sure that we don't ever see anything like we saw for the past four years again. President Trump got re got reelected in large part uh because of what happened at our southern border.
▶ 2:09:19And as a Texan, as somebody that bore the brunt of a lot of these issues and a lot of these problems during the B administration, I'm here to tell you that I'm utterly disgusted at what I saw. And no, I am not racist. And no, I am not xenophobic. I'm a person that's want to die for my country. And I'm I'm a person that fought for my country in combat. And I want everyone to know this that Americans need to be the top priority in our country.
▶ 2:09:46Every other country in the world operates like that and so should we. Thank you for being here. God bless you and merry Christmas, sir.
▶ 2:09:53Almost time has expired. Mr.
▶ 2:09:56I thank the chairman uh for holding this hearing. I appreciate the witnesses. Thank you for being here. Um couple of questions and I think I'll start with you, Mr. Rogers. Um, and I'm just going to level set and some of this may have been covered before before I got here, but under President Biden, the TPS population uh increased from, I believe, somewhere around 410,000 at the end of the first Trump administration to one a half million before Biden left office this January, basically quadrupling.
▶ 2:10:26Is that roughly correct?
▶ 2:10:29In other words, and I think and I've heard some people talking about some of the data, but I I just do think it merits observation for the American people. In other words, Biden added over aliens to the TPS population, meaning over 70% of all aliens granted TPS initially entered the US during the Biden Harris administration.
▶ 2:10:46Um, so according to federal data and Pew Research, most TPS holders are illegal aliens who crossed the border without authorization or overstayed their visa before receiving TPS, not individuals who are lawfully present on valid temporary visas. Do you do you agree with that assertion?
▶ 2:11:03Um, during the Biden administration's four years, nearly 3 million illegal aliens were parrolled into the interior and even created the CHNV program in 2022, which created specific parole programs to admit hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Venezuelans. Correct.
▶ 2:11:20So, Venezuela and Haiti received TPS designations in 2023 and 2024, respectively, both after the launch of the mass CHNV pearl program in 2022. Is it plausible that the Biden administration used TPS to allow large numbers of illegal aliens, Venezuelans and Haitians, to remain in the US since most of these individuals likely did not enter the US lawfully or qualify for
▶ 2:11:45It's definitely plausible. In fact, there was designations at the beginning of his term and then they uh backdated and extended the dates after they'd let all those people in. So, it's very
▶ 2:11:54right. I mean, impeached Secretary Alejandro Mayorcis blew our borders wide open uh by exploiting asylum and parole. It's fairly well documented and and in my view breaking the law in doing so. Um so I would think it's well within the realm of possibilities that TPS was also abused to shield those released illegal aliens from deportation. Right.
▶ 2:12:15Yeah, it's definitely plausible.
▶ 2:12:17So and it just wasn't Haiti and Venezuela, right? My Orcus and Biden used TPS to shield upwards of 700,000 illegal aliens from Afghanistan, Burma, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Lebanon, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen. All true, right?
▶ 2:12:36Um, let me ask you this. The premise for maybe I'll ask you, Mr. Fishman, just because I want to spread the wealth here a little bit and have fun with George. Um the premise for TPS is providing temporary immigration relief to aliens already in the US when a catastrophic event occurs in their home country.
▶ 2:12:53Um yet beginning with TPS Liberia in 1997, the executive branch unilaterally created a new authority called a TPS redesation, right? Which it uses to move up the eligibility cutoff date and cover aliens who come to the US after the event that resulted in the initial grant of TPS. So the term redesation does not appear in section 244 of the INA, right?
▶ 2:13:17It does not.
▶ 2:13:18Nevertheless, the executive branch, including the Biden administration, used redesation to apply the initial designation, even if the event occurred 10 to 20 years ago to cover recent US president illegal aliens from that country. Is that right? So, can you explain how the executive is supposed to square this redesignation with congressional intent given that it's not stated anywhere in the relevant INA sections?
▶ 2:13:42Well, the uh the USCIS CIS director under President Biden, President Obama, I'm sorry, was very clear. DHS uh designation can be extended based on things adverse climactic conditions that have absolutely nothing to do with why TPS was uh designated for that country in the first place.
▶ 2:14:07So it's an like the abuse of parole, like the abuse of asylum, it's abuse of the statutes that Congress put forward to do these designations. Wouldn't you
▶ 2:14:20Mr. Mr. Rogers, do you agree with that?
▶ 2:14:23Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you hold this hearing. I think this is an important topic we've been able to elevate and I'll yield back my last 30 seconds for the sake of time.
▶ 2:14:31I appreciate that. Gentlemen yields back. Um, we have no one else here uh to uh continue questioning. So, we'll conclude today's hearing. I want to thank our witnesses. Oh, I'm told Mr. Growthman is on his way, but if he's not here now, we'll just have to go along without him. Uh again, thank you for appearing uh before the subcommittee today.
▶ 2:14:58Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record. And without objection and without Mr. Gruffman, the hearing is adjourned.