The Continuing Tragedy of Sanctuary Laws

Subcommittee will come to order, uh without objection, the chairs authorized to declare a recess at any time, and we'll begin with the opening statements. The subcommittee today uh continues its ongoing series of hearings into the continuing horrors and tragedies of so-called sanctuary policies enacted by Democrats in jurisdictions affecting one-third of our nation. I concluded my opening statement at our last hearing by saying today's hearing should be illuminating for any American watching. And people need to pay attention because these incidents are unfolding daily, and the next grieving family telling their heartbreaking story before this committee might be yours. Well, sure enough, just a week ago, only a few miles from my house, a brutal, tragic an entirely preventable atrocity unfolded in Sacramento, claiming the life of Shalini Thakur, a vibrant, friendly, outgoing young woman who worked at a local Panera bread shop. She died at the hands of an illegal alien, an Indian national who had illegally crossed the wide open Mexican border under the Biden administration. Last year he began stalking and harassing Shalini. She made repeated appeals to the Sacramento Sheriff's Office for protection. and ultimately received a restraining order against this monster. When he violated that order, her appeals to the sheriff's office were ignored. The sheriff's office was well aware of the danger he posed, and a simple call to ICE was all that was needed to remove this known and imminent danger to our community. Just a single phone call, perhaps a minute of a deputy's time. But that call was never placed, because California's sanctuary law forbids it. A week ago today, this illegal alien showed up at her work, threatened her, and when she tried to flee, he shot her multiple times. Security footage shows him calmly approaching her bleeding body, collapsed on the pavement, pointing the pistol at her head, and firing into her skull at point blank range. He killed himself as police closed in. Shalini's funeral was yesterday. She was an only child whose parents were from India. Her father had died two years ago and her grieving mother is now left alone in the world. When interviewed through tears, she said, "My daughter's life was not protected by the police. Many times, many times she called the police." Ironically, Shalini's shattered mother is planning to return to India, where she's likely to be safer. than in the sanctuary city of Sacramento. So chalk up another needless tragedy to the Democrat sanctuary laws that prevent law enforcement from communicating with ICE to protect our communities. In any one of the twenty-five hundred jurisdictions that cooperate with ICE through two eighty-seven G agreements, Shalini's first call to local law enforcement could have triggered a call to ICE, and he would have been taken off the streets and deported. But this was California, two eighty-seven G agreements and otherwise coordinating with ICE are prohibited, and yet another promising young lady is dead as a direct result. I don't know how the Democrats can continue to defend such policies as the butcher's bill of maimed and murdered Americans continues to mount day by day, city by city. They say this is about trust, well Shalini Thakur trusted elected officials and law enforcement to protect her. And that trust was shattered. The danger is real and imminent and can strike anywhere in this country at any time. In the last three and a half years, Democrat sanctuary jurisdictions refused at least forty-one thousand ICE detainers of prisoners in custody for committing other crimes. That means instead of removing them from our communities by turning them over to ICE, they released forty-one thousand known criminals back into our neighborhoods. Instead of safely and securing and securely transferring them when they're already disarmed and in custody, these jurisdictions release them to prey on others. Then squads of ICE officers have to track them down one by one while they're at large, risking the lives of officers, of innocent bystanders, of misguided members of the public who attempt to interfere, and ironically, even the targets themselves. And then when people are killed as a result, the Democrats blame ICE rather than their own policies that needlessly set these deaths in motion. Today we will hear from uh Natoli uh Varfolomiv, uh whose nineteen year old daughter, Anya, was burned alive with her boyfriend, Nikolai Ossokin. The man responsible, uh Oscar Eduardo Ortega Arguiano, was an illegal alien with a long rap sheet who'd already been deported twice. He returned and while drunk, high on drugs, and traveling nearly one hundred miles an hour, crashed into the vehicle carrying Anya and Nikolai. After serving just a third of his sentence in that crash, California was about to release him back into our community, until ICE arrested him. He's now serving a longer prison sentence for illegal entry, than he did for snuffing out these two young lives, and when that sentence is concluded, he will be deported. We'll also hear from Elizabeth Carter, the mother of Billy Carter. Billy and his wife, Jennifer Lauer, were newlyweds when an illegal alien, recklessly driving an eighteen-wheeler, killed them in an Oregon highway last November. The illegal alien had been released at the border by the Biden administration, given a work permit by the Biden administration, and then issued a commercial driver's license by the sanctuary state of California. After the crash, he was charged with five counts, including felony manslaughter. Ice lodged a detainer, but Oregon's sanctuary policies prevented that detainer from being honored. Instead, he was released back into the community. Ice had to track him down and arrest him at large a few weeks later. The only reason we can hold him now to face justice is because Ice is detaining him under the INA. Of course, in a sanctuary jurisdiction like Oregon, there's no assurance that he will ever be prosecuted. We'll also hear today from Broome County Sheriff Frederick Achchar. He and fourteen other New York sheriffs have challenged the new liberal state laws that restrict their ability to coordinate with federal immigration authorities. These local law enforcement officials are asking Albany for one simple thing. Let them do their job so that they can protect their communities. The Democrats complain that these hearings are a waste of time, because the bill to end these sanctuary policies, a bill that every one of them opposed in this committee has not yet been taken up on the House floor. Well, the Judiciary Committee Republicans want it brought up to pass it. The Democrats want to bring it up to defeat it. The Majority Leader assured me last night that both sides will have that chance before the end of this session. But until it is taken up and passed, This subcommittee will take every opportunity to sound the alarm and give voice to the victims of this tragic and deadly policy. I look forward to our witnesses' testimony, and I now recognize the ranking member for her opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, good morning. I thank all of our witnesses and the families for being here today, and I express my condolences for the tremendous losses that you have suffered. Every one of my colleagues on the Democratic side agrees with Republicans that we as a committee should do everything possible to prevent these deaths. The question on the table is how to do so. Congress is tasked with the awesome responsibility of crafting immigration policy that is sensible, humane, orderly, and effective. That means we have to consider every aspect of that policy. We should be holding hearings on real solutions that fix an immigration system that has not been modernized to meet the needs of our country in over thirty years. That means hearing from families like yours, yes. It also means hearing from families of the six people, including three US citizens, who DHS agents shot in cold blood on our streets. It means hearing from the families of the fifty-six people who have died in for-profit immigration detention centers. This is a record number of deaths under this administration because the administration has decided not to enforce any of the basic detention standards Congress put into place. It means hearing from the multiple U S. citizens who were illegally detained and deported by ICE and the countless people who were illegally deported to countries to which immigration judges ruled that they should never be forced to go. It means hearing from the CEOs of the private for-profit detention centers that are using your US taxpayer dollars to incarcerate over sixty-five thousand people every single night. It means hearing from businesses who are seeing their long-term workers with zero criminal records being deported and from the families of seniors and children whose care workers have been deported and now have no one to care for, their precious family. We should hear from the U S Forest Service officials who just terrorized five families at the Red Bridge campground in the Mount Baker-Sno-Kwame National Forest in my home state of Washington. Two rangers approached the campsite during the day and took photographs of several of the adults' IDs, and then just before midnight, armed ICE officers arrived with forest service rangers, shook the families' tents, terrorized the children who were inside, and arrested five men, fathers, uncles, godfathers, who are now detained at the Northwest Detention Center. What a waste of forest service resources when they should be fighting fires, and ensuring that our public lands are available to everyone. I have demanded answers to this, but surprise, surprise, I have not received any. This committee has zero interest in ensuring accountability or actually moving forward sensible immigration policy that this country desperately needs. Republicans say they have a solution to all of this pain that you all have suffered. It is H R seventy-six forty. Let me be very clear. Republicans have already passed that bill through this committee months and months ago, despite our side's complete disagreement with their approach. But guess what? They have the majority in this committee, they have the majority on the floor, and they can bring it to the floor for a vote. But they have not. Why have they not brought this bill to the floor for a vote? You have to ask yourselves that. I'll tell you, it's because despite having full control of the House, the Senate and the White House, they won't be able to get the votes to pass that bill because it does not work. And the American people do not want their solution of mass deportations. Republicans gave two hundred and forty billion, billion with a B, dollars of taxpayer money to DHS for immigration enforcement, but none of that has made our community safer. For the first time this summer, the majority of people that DHS arrested were people who pose absolutely no threat to public safety. And the number of people with criminal convictions who were arrested by ICE actually decreased. Decreased, not increased. That's because when DHS expends all of its energy to go after parents, long-time friends, neighbors, when HSI agents, who are supposed to investigate serious crime and human trafficking, are instead being moved to street sweeps and riding along with local police for random traffic stops, we are less safe, not more safe. The Trump administration has cut thousands of staff members from federal agencies, like the FBI, the DEA, ATF, has dropped tens of thousands of criminal investigations, including terrorism cases, to pri- prioritize immigration enforcement. Federal law enforcement agents have been reassigned from standard criminal investigations to hit immigration arrest quotas and that has also led to deadly mistakes like the murder of Johan Sebastian Doron Guerrero a twenty-five year old father and husband with a valid work permit who was shot and killed by ICE agents who were actually targeting someone else. Or when ICE killed fifty-two year old father and husband, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, because they were looking for someone else and they said that Mr. Araujo quote, "resembled the target." Shifting entire systems toward mass deportation actually leaves communities vulnerable to transnational crime, drug trafficking, and other non-immigration threats. And guess what? The majority of Americans across party lines know that. That is exactly why public polling shows that Trump's numbers on how he is handling immigration enforcement have plummeted. You see, whatever you hear today, the majority of Americans across party lines do not want to see this cruelty that makes us even less safe. These are the last four days of legislative work before the midterms. Fox News and our Republican colleagues will use clips of this hearing and the horrific pain that you have suffered to try and convince the American people that we don't care about you. They'll show darkened photos of my face, which they do regularly, they'll encourage more death threats against all of us, and blast terrible headlines about how Democrats refuse to stand up for the American people. All so that they can desperately try to convince Americans before the midterm elections that they are not somehow responsible for driving up gas prices and grocery prices to an all-time high with their illegal war in Iran, so that Americans have to choose between feeding their families and paying their rent. They want you to forget that they slashed health care for tens of millions of Americans, just so they could give trillions of dollars of tax breaks to billionaires and giant corporations. In fact, just this week it was reported that their big bad betrayal bill that they passed last summer allow giant AI companies that operate these data centers and are developing out-of-control technology that could eliminate the human race, those companies now pay twenty-five percent less in corporate taxes because of what our Republican colleagues did. They really hope that you forget all of this, and instead that you blame immigrants, your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends, your family. I think the American people are smarter than that. I am truly sorry for what you suffered, regardless of what they say today. Just ask yourselves why Republicans won't just pass the bill that they say is the solution to all of this, even though they have the majority. And consider that maybe, just maybe, that bill and their solution of mass deportations doesn't fix anything. And it certainly doesn't fix the pain that you legitimately feel. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and I yield back.

Gentlelady yields back. Uh without objection all other opening statements will be included in the record, and I'll now uh introduce uh today's witnesses. Mister Anatoly uh Varfalamev uh is a resident of California, a sanctuary state. He's a naturalized US citizen after having emigrated legally from the USSR in nineteen ninety one. as an engineer for many years at high-tech companies and his owned his own business. His daughter Anya was killed by a repeat criminal and illegal alien drunk driver in California in November of twenty twenty one. We have uh honorable sh- uh sheriff uh Fred Akshar. Mister uh Akshar has been sheriff of of Broome County, New York, since twenty twenty three. His career in law enforcement began with two years as a dispatcher with the Chinon I hope I pronounced that right, Chenango uh County Sheriff's Office before serving thirteen years with the Broome County Sheriff's Office. Uh Sheriff Akshar served in the New York State Senate from twenty fifteen to twenty twenty two and is a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to strike down New York sanctuary laws. Uh Mrs. Elizabeth Carter is a resident of Oregon, a sanctuary state. She's a homemaker, mother and grandmother of one. Together with her husband Dennis, she raised three sons and a daughter. Mrs. Carter's son Billy and daughter-in-law Jenny were killed in November twenty twenty five by an illegal alien truck driver had been issued a commercial driver's license by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, drove recklessly and jackknifed his semi-truck on an Oregon highway. Billy and Jenny had been married for only sixteen days. And we have Mrs. uh Ms. Noreen Shaw, uh Director of Immigration Policy at the American Civil Liberties Union here at the invitation of the Democrats. She previously served as Senior Director of Campaigns at the US Section of Amnesty International, and is Acting Director of Columbia Law School's Human Rights Clinic. And Ms. Shaw has a JD from Columbia sh- uh Law School and a BS from Northwestern University's Madill uh School of Journalism. We welcome our witnesses and thank them for appearing today and we'll begin by squaring you in would you please uh rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear uh or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge information and belief? So help you God. Let the record uh reflect the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Uh thank you. Uh please know your written testimony will be entered in the uh record in its entirety. Accordingly, we'd ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes, and we'll begin with Mrs. Carter.

Thank you for having me here to speak today. I uh I hope I do it justice. I am here to speak on behalf of myself and my husband Dennis, but as well Thomas and Rebecca Lauer, parents of Jeni- Jennifer Lynn Lauer, the most amazing daughter-in-law I could have ever hoped for. They've asked me to be sure to mention that um Our kids didn't like politics. They didn't get into it. They they They would be heartbroken at the thought that their memory is being used for a political football, tossed back and forth, making points on an issue that they knew little to nothing about. Billy and Jenny Billy and Jenny loved their faith. It was important to them, and they were both raised with a sense of service being important, so they volunteered regularly in their community. It was important to them to help help those who couldn't help themselves, or to reach a hand out to somebody who just needed compassion and understanding. I was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and so were all four of my children. My husband Dennis and I lived in the first home we ever had together, listening to the sound of gunfire regularly at night. We were in a neighborhood where there were gangs all around us, and I didn't feel safe letting my children leave leave the inside of the house to play in our front yard. We made it our mission to get our children to a safer place, a d- a away from the the big city and the crime that was rampant in Phoenix around us, and my husband applied multiple times to get a a job with the federal government, because we knew that could move us out of Arizona. I thought I was taking my children to the safest place I could bring them. I did not realize that I was taking them to a s- a state where sanctuary policies would then Sanctuary policies have made Sanctuary policies have divided my life into before and after. Before, my son and daughter-in-law were married and killed sixteen days after they were married. And after. Before, I had tremendous faith in my government. I I loved our justice system, the fact that everybody is entitled to a fair trial, that nobody, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, no one in our country is denied the right to a fair trial when accused of a crime. I I was proud of that. And then after after I was aware, made aware of the fact that losing your children isn't the worst thing that can happen to you having to fight your justice system just to get a fair trial to get answers, that that is the worst thing that can happen. We were planning a wedding in Oregon before. After, we had to plan his and hers funeral in our hometown and their hometown. The other driver was an illegal immigrant who was caught the day he came into the country through Lukeville, Arizona, and released immediately for breaking our laws and not following the path of of immigration that that is set out for them. The person driving the other vehicle, Mister Rahinder Kumar, was rewarded. He was allowed into the country. He was given the right to work, and he was given a commercial driver's license by the state of California. Didn't matter to California that the federal government wasn't okay with him getting that driver's license. It didn't matter to them that other states would have no say in whether someone they gave a driver's license to was on their road. And After coming back from their honeymoon and a second reception in Jenny's hometown, Billy and Jenny didn't make it home to their first apartment to start their lives together. This would not have happened if instead of catching and releasing, Mister Kumar was asked to go through the proper legal process. It it has been my experience that Getting straight answers when your federal government and your state government disagree and are prohibited by laws from talking to each other is nearly impossible. People born in our country deserve a fair trial if their life is lost, and having to fight and beg for that has been a great injustice and left me feeling betrayed by my government. I thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Uh, we'll next turn to uh uh Ms. Shaw.

Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Noreen Shah and I'm the ACLU's Director of Immigration Policy. No words can express how deeply sorry I am for your loss. As a parent, I can't imagine your daily pain, and no statistics or policy points matter to that pain. And I know several angel families have appeared before this committee with incredible courage because they don't want one more family to have to endure what they've endured. Mister Chairman, we have differing perspectives, I'm sure, but I think it's safe to say everyone in this room wants our communities to be safe. What this administration is doing is not the hard work to make our communities safer. They're not making our communities more safe because they're not trying to make crimes like the one your children experienced not happen again. They're simply running up their deportation numbers, arresting as many people as possible. Today I want to share another story, a story of an American boy named Orlin Reyes who's three years old. He was born in Florida to a woman named Wendy. On January eighth, twenty twenty six, Wendy dropped Orlin with a babysitter for the day and she headed to work pouring concrete at a construction site. Minutes before she and her sister arrived, they were stopped by the local sheriff's office and this was a traffic stop that would change Wendy's life forever. Like most of us, Wendy worked hard to earn a living for her kids, her kid. The local officers saw the sisters had equipment in their truck, heard them speak Spanish, and even though there was no detainer on file, Wendy had no criminal history. In order to her sister, local officers called ICE, who took the women into custody. Wendy wrote a letter to Congress, and I'll read from it now. "I told ICE that I was a single mother, that Orlin is just a toddler, that he depended on me. No one cared. We were taken to jail and our four children were left behind. The only person available to care for our children was my sister's former partner, a man she had left because of domestic violence." From detention, I begged ICE for help. I told them I wanted Orlin to come with me if I was deported, and I asked ICE to give me a copy of my passport so I could request Orlin's US passport. ICE did not respond. Wendy was deported with her son, and in Honduras she immediately requested his passport. The day she received it, hours later, she got the worst news any of us could possibly imagine. Orlin had been killed. Imagine the desperation of being a single mom, torn from your toddler, and how and then hundreds of miles away to learn your worst nightmare had been realized. She wrote, "The police say Orlin suffered terrible abuse. He had broken ribs, burns, blunt force injuries and signs of sexual assault. My son was my whole world. He was my light. I was his protector. I will miss him for the rest of my life." If the sheriff's office had not called ICE that day, Wendy would have returned to her little boy. Across the country, thousands of local law enforcement agencies are now working for ICE, as it seeks to arrest as many people as possible, not for our safety, but to fill a quota. Public safety is taking a backseat as ICE literally takes a front seat, in ride-alongs with local police, using traffic stops and checkpoints to stop people for no reason, other than their black or brown skin. And the scenes of blatant racial profiling in this country are un-American. In late July, local law enforcement, Forest Service and ice turned a popular swimming spot in Pisgah National Forest into a deportation trap, stopping the cars with Latino drivers, waving the cars with white drivers through. In states that have banned sanctuary, that have embraced ice, like Florida, Fl- families are afraid of the police who are sworn to protect them. School children have watched from bus windows as parents or neighbors are arrested by are arrested by local police or ice. When American citizens are chased by masked agents and tackled to the ground, because they, quote, look immigrant, We're not safer. When masked agents shoot people in our streets, we are not safer. When in Tom Holman's own words, quote, " half the people ICE arrests are quote non-criminals", and when just four percent of peop- people ICE is using taxpayer dollars to put away, have no v- only four percent have a violent criminal history, we are not safer. It's time we fix this. We need to build a new system that earns back public trust from everyone, where our law enforcement agencies are not diverted to serve in a arbitrary arrest quota for immigrants but focused on and resource to carry out proven strategies to keep our community safe. Where immigrant workers and families are not left to live in fear, but have a real path to gain legal status and earn citizenship. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Uh, next we will hear from Sheriff Frederick Akshar.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. Members of the committee, thank you for having me here today. Uh, I am Fred Akshar. I proudly serve as Broome County's fifty-eighth elected sheriff. served in public service for the last twenty-six years and have a unique perspective, nineteen of which uh as a member of law enforcement, seven uh, Mister Chairman, as you mentioned, uh as a member of the New York State Senate, proudly representing the people of the fifty-second Senate district. Today I lead a law enforcement agency of over three hundred sworn officers and civilians uh and oversee a six hundred bed correctional facility. The men and women of the Broome County Sheriff's Office, some of whom I am with here today and with whom I proudly serve beside, have devoted themselves. to protecting and serving the people of our community. Every day they put on the uniform, they kiss their loved ones goodbye, and they put themselves in harm's way to protect others, to prevent tragedies from occurring and to protect families, loved ones and community members, like the witnesses that join us here today. Over the past several years, we've seen bureaucrats in Albany consistently working to make it harder and harder for them these men and women in uniform to do their job and keep people safe. And no matter the hypothetical intentions behind laws like raise the age, bail reform, discovery reform, less is more, and the HALT Act, the real world consequences of these laws have turned the criminal justice system in New York into a revolving door of repeat offenders being released without any consequences only to create new victims every day. New York's so-called Local Cops, Local Crime Act isn't just a, i- is, is just another in a long line of politically motivated stunts designed to appease advocates and do what is politically expedient for some. at the expense of public safety and common sense. While it says one thing, it does an- another. And what these new sac- statutes actually do is let Albany cancel local public safety contracts and then investigate the sheriffs who made them, putting handcuffs on cops rather than the criminals that they were designed for. Make no mistake, the Broome County Sheriff's Office always will and always has complied with the laws written. But I have joined fourteen other independently elected sheriffs across the great state of New York. and filed a lawsuit to stop the new statute. The policy of the Broome County Sheriff's Office from the start has been to prioritize public safety with a clear understanding of what our role is. We understand that our deputies are not immigration officers and we would not be participating in the day-to-day civil immigration enforcement. Thanks to those in the federal government, there is an entire agency dedicated to doing that very thing. But if there were ever a situation in our community where uh our safety was in jeopardy because of a wanted criminal, regardless of their immigration status, we would not hesitate to act in the interest of protecting our community. We have always supported our colleagues in law enforcement, regardless of the agency in which they work or the uniform that they wear because that's what cops do. Uh, Broome County is not immune to the consequences of ten million undocumented and unvetted people who entered our c- uh country, thanks to the Biden and Harris administration. In August of twenty twenty four, in Endicott, uh in Broome County, two miles away from where my uh six-year-old son goes to school. A Peruvian gang leader and serial killer, Gianfranco Torres Navarro, wanted for killing twenty-three people in Peru, was located and arrested. He had entered the country illegally in May of that same year. He was arrested. He was given a ticket to appear at a future date. Did he go? Course he didn't go. He came to New York. He came to my community to hide thanks to the sanctuary laws that are embraced by and promoted by Democrat leaders in New York. Rather than protecting law-abiding New Yorkers, their laws provide safe harbor for people like Torres Navarro. We were part of the two eighty seven G program, the warrant service officer program. All of that has been taken away from us, uh, thanks to Governor Hochul and and the Democrat-led New York State Legislature. Uh, as I said, we didn't actively participate in day-to-day civil immigration, for the past twenty years the Office of the Sheriff has held federal detainees on behalf of our federal law enforcement partners. I swore an oath to protect the people of Broome County and I d- I did not swear an oath to protect and accept a state statute that forces the end of federal contracts and meaningful working relationships with federal law enforcement partner, because Governor Hochul dislikes that partner. I want to repeat something that I said back at home a couple of weeks ago, because I feel so strongly about it. I don't answer to Governor Hochul. I don't answer to Tish James. I answer directly to the great people of Broome County. My authority doesn't come by way of the governor, the attorney general. It doesn't come by way of an interview in a boardroom. It comes through the people at the ballot box. That's where my authority comes from. Mister Chairman, I've uh I bet as asked why'd you file a lawsuit against uh the two of the most powerful people in Albany? It's very, very simple, because my colleagues are standing up for what's right, and we're standing up for public safety. We're standing up for parents. that sit to my left and my right, who have suffered unimaginable pain. That's why we're suing the governor, and that's why we're suing the Attorney General. I thank you for your time and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you for your testimony. And finally, uh, we will hear from Mister Anatoly Varfalamev.

Uh, good morning. Thank you everybody for inviting me to this hearing. Uh, I'm an ordinary citizen, uh, I'm politically incorrect. I do not belong to any party. I'm just an angry grieving father. Uh, my nineteen year old daughter, Anya, was killed together with her childhood friend on November thirteenth, two thousand twenty one, by illegal alien Oscar Tiger. Here's Anya's story. Anya was the youngest daughter in in the family. Her sisters were thirteen and twenty two. So she's a baby sister. Uh from age three she loved classic ballet and she later spent up to forty hours per week practicing her professional technique at Bayer Ballet Academy in Mountain View. Uh she joined Scouts because she believed in scouting. She graduated French International School and having graduated, three languages freely and uh plus uh she spoke Spanish. Uh with her future degree in chemistry, she was a sophomore at uh Foothill College. She wanted to probably join the US Department of State. Anya never c- uh complained. She was bright, smart, athletic, hardworking, creative, crafty, loved arts and drawing. She was always busy with studies uh and her hobbies. She was just the perfect child. But that future was taken away in an instance by an illegal alien criminal, abetted by the Biden administration and California bureaucrats, who allowed him into the country. At three AM on Sunday morning on November fourteenth, two thousand twenty-one, two police officers knocked on my door with the most terrible news. And our lives was crashed forever. Uh, they told that a car flying at one hundred miles per hour rammed a car with two people inside and they found Anya's ID. They asked for medical records.

To identify the body. I knew something was wrong. Kolya's car was hit. with a force that spent it over three lanes from their exit lane and burst into flames. The children burned inside. Sorry.

The Coroner's office released the bodies of our children for funeral in closed caskets. We were not allowed to open them. Last week I thought I had guts to look at the report from the Co- Coroner. Here's some words. The body of female measuring sixty two inches with extensive chariot and bending of the body with numerous fractures, some heat related. I won't read further. That stopped me right there. Our tragedy was the direct result of crazy, sinister, incomprehensible, stupidly anti-American open border policy by the Biden-Harris administration, embraced by Democrat Politicians and sanctuary state with ignorance, arrogant and self-righteous bureaucrats like Prince Gavin Newsom and his minions. They are responsible for what happened to my daughter and Collier. And we are not the only victims. I hope you remember some of the names of those who uh testified before you, not only the persons that are foreigners that came here illegally. Over three hundred fifty people attended Ania's uh funerals of different ages. And uh I can tell you that none of them was from my family basically, my wife and my daughter, that's it, who were present. We don't have family here in the United States. In Ap- uh on April twenty eight, two thousand twenty two, the criminal was sentenced to ten years in state prison and restitution of forty thousand for funeral and burial expenses of course he never paid. In January uh he was supposed to be released uh by CDCR just after three and a half years of sentence time. His sanctuary st- uh the sanctuary state of California completely betrayed and abandoned our children, our community. None of the letters, petitions, uh signed and sent to Gavin Newsom, Jay uh uh Rob Bonta, San Mateo C- Congress Representative Kevin Malin, from none of thirteen local assembly members, we contacted. No response. It took us three years uh in sanctuary California to find out a thirty-nine year old felon was not only a repeat criminal with previous prison times, who never had license to drive in California, but he was a legal alien already reported twice. in two thousand sixteen and twenty-one, and she should not have been in the country. The fact that the criminal was allowed by the borders uh by the policy of open borders uh added anger and pain. That was crazy, wild, disgusting, and shameful. At my naturalization in two thousand one, I pledged I pledged allegiance to the United States of America, to the Constitution, not to a phony sanctuary state. As a U. S. Citizen, I follow the laws of of the land, the federal laws, as everyone else should be. I am not a California citizen. I'm just a resident. And I hope that my testimony will help some of you to come to proper conclusions. And I am asking why Anya's safety was ignored, why she was not protected by the government, why she was punished by the democratic government, why the criminal was released and was picked up by ICE. Thankfully, he wa- also faced uh the federal indictment charges, and he was sentenced to additional forty-six months in federal prison. He will be released in December two thousand twenty-eight. We hope that ICE will remove him kick him out of the country forever. There is no satisfaction or vindication in all of this for me, for my family. We now forever, my now forever nineteen year old daughter, Anya, is not with me anymore. I do not feel safer for my family and my two grandchildren in sanctuary, California. The shameful sanctuary lawlessness must be stopped. The attack on ICE must be stopped. Govern and law enforcements of all levels should work eyes to clear the country from illegal invaders to make Americans safer. And I want the responsible for the murder of my daughter, for hiding information from the victim families like us, for open borders and creating that chaos with sensory policies to be held accountable. With that, I want to conclude my testimony and I would love to say more, but I'm too too emotional to proceed. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony and uh thank you for being here today to tell your story. We'll now proceed with uh five minute uh questions, uh beginning with the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mister Jordan.

Uh thank you Mister Chairman, uh Sheriff

Very important, if I could uh without objection Mister Goldman will be permitted to participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning witnesses if a member yields

Sure.

some time for that purpose hearing no objection so ordered.

Thank you Mister Chairman, uh Sheriff it's a it's a big step to sue your own state, isn't it?

It's the right thing to do, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, I mean, but you it's it's a step I assume you don't take lightly.

Course not.

But you've seen you've seen what this crazy law means in practice. Can you just just just tell us again what ha- let's say let's say you got an illegal migrant who's been charged with another crime who's in your jail or d- I think you said you had a six hundred person jail that you you oversee who's in your jail, and then is gonna be released on some kind of bail or whatever. Um, what what's the w- and ICE notifies you, sends a detainer. In New York, what do you have to do?

Let him out the back door.

Let him out the back door. You can't turn him over to the federal government, even though he's here illegally and committed, potentially committed another, been charged with another crime.

Thanks to Governor Hochul and local cops, local crimes,

You gotta let him go.

that that is Yes.

Right. And many times these individuals, when they're let go, tragic things happen, as we've just heard from from these these amazing parents. And so that's why you decided you're gonna sue your own state. Is that right?

Public safety first.

Yeah, because I think in your testimony you said you take an oath. You take an oath to the people in your county who elected you as the guy who's in charge of making sure that that county is as safe as possible. Is that right?

That has been that has been the greatest challenge, uh, having to take edicts from Albany so far removed from public safety matters, um,

Ex-

and taking away from from local law enforcement.

Exactly. They don't know the folks in your co- Broome County, I think you said. They don't know the folks in Broome County like you do. You stood for election, your name was on the ballot, they elected you for public safety reasons, and you know this law jeopardizes public safety.

One hundred percent.

One hundred percent. Now, I I wanna know, I actually believe this is this is a systematic plan of the Democrat party. Step one, I think you had this in your in your statement as well, Sheriff. Step one, let in during the Biden administration, let in ten million people. Step two, create sanctuary jurisdictions, which makes it difficult to remove those individuals even when they commit another crime. Step three, don't fund the guys who do the removing. Twice this Congress, the Democrats have shut down the government cuz they didn't wanna fund ICE. This is a strategy the left has, which makes absolutely no sense. Would you agree with that?

I agree. I think it's a failing strategy and I think the witnesses that are at the table today uh are a clear indication of that.

They sure are. They sure are. Do you think, um, Sanctuary jurisdictions are also an attraction for people to come into the country, particularly bad guys who've done bad things who enter the country. Do you think that's the case, Sheriff?

I think the case of, uh, Torres Navarro in Endicott, again, where, w- very close to where my six year old son goes to school,

Yep.

is a, is a very clear example of that. Uh, sanctuary policies allow for safe harbor.

Yeah.

Uh.

Any idea, any how, any idea how many, uh, what percentage of the American population lives in a sanctuary jurisdiction, Sheriff? Any idea?

I do not know, Mr. Chairman.

Almost a third. Now think about that. Three hundred and forty million people in the greatest country ever, almost a third, live in a jurisdiction where the politicians tell good local law enforcement like you, you can't work with federal law enforcement to enforce federal law. Is that maybe the dumbest thing you've ever heard?

I agree.

I mean, it's just, it's just, it's just crazy. So I, I appreciate what you're doing. I know it's not you. I appreciate these guys behind you. you brought with you. You're not the first sheriff. We had a sheriff a couple weeks ago at a hearing who was suing his state, state of Maryland, same darn reason. Blue state doing crazy left-wing policies, and the sheriff says, I took an oath to the people in my county to stand up for them. I don't want happening what happened to these these parents with those amazing ki- I mean, the the the videos, I apologize, I walked in for half a year as Miss Carter, but I saw the I if I got it right, Miss Carter, it was shortly after their wedding when this happened.

Sixteen days.

Two weeks.

Sixteen days.

Yeah. Um, I mean, you can just tell, amazing looking people. Obviously, your daughter was talented ballerina, and it just, just amazing to see, that's what happens when you have these dumb policy. Just work with the federal government. Just work with them. I get it. I just do not understand this, and we will keep And I want to thank our chairman. We will keep talking about this until we we've got a bill that we passed four months ago in this committee that deals with this problem. And we will we will keep doing hearings until that bill gets passed. And I want to thank Chairman McClintock for his great work on that legislation and for doing these hearings, letting grieving parents come tell the story and letting people who care about the safety of their community who are willing to go sue their own darn state uh, come forward and testify. So, again, thank you all for being here. I yield back.