False Narratives Surrounding Conditions at the Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center

ready oh it's not working The subcommittee will come to order without objection. The chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. Welcome everyone today. Welcome to our hearing on Delaney Hall. I am now we are now going to pledge allegiance to the flag and we will stand for a moment, c- continue to stand for a moment of silence for our fallen service members. Please rise.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America And to the republic for which it stands, To the republic for which it stands, one nation, one nation, under God, under God, indivisible, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. with liberty and justice for all.

The main standing. Now recognize myself for an opening statement. I wanna thank all the witnesses for being here. It's always a labor of love and I know it takes time to get here, time to be here, time to get back, so we do appreciate all of you. We're here today because of a narrative that has been told over and over and over again for weeks. The narrative is that Delaney Hall, and by extension all of these detention centers are places of cruelty. It's just not true. That the people working there are starving, the detainees are are hurting, they are being denied medical care, and they're being abused. I wanna be very direct about this story. It's false. It's not true. It's not accurate. And the people telling it know it's false. They have seen the same things that I have seen. I can tell you because I've seen them with my own eyes. I walked the facility, I met with the staff, not just the routine zipping out, we were there a long time. And what I saw goes against all the narratives that you hear and that that that the Democrats have tried to say about this facility. Detainees there are served three meals a day. and are evaluated by certified dietitians. I'm just gonna go through the list. They have access to medical, dental, and mental health care, and if it's something where they can deal with, they have cooperative agreements with local hospitals. They get twenty-four hour emergency care whenever and wherever it's needed. And, you know, I'm a dentist, so I got a chance to talk to the dentist, I g- I'm sorry, the physician, the dentist I did not get a chance to speak with. Um, just as a - a - an aside, you know, there's this sense that, oh, they're not getting good medical care. He went into, and he can't show me private files, obviously, that's, you know, classified information between a physician and his patient, but told me about the people who had diabetes and never knew it, told me about individuals who had never been to a doctor before in their life, and finally receiving medical care, people with high blood pressure. people with a variety of issues and illnesses that were receiving medications and prescriptions for them for the first time ever in their life. The Department of Homeland Security has said plainly that ICE holds these facilities to higher standards than a most American prison and that's what I saw. And I have to tell you again, in my former life as a state senator, I was chairman of the prison gang task force, went into every facility in the state of New Jersey, every one of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and let me tell you, they wish that those facilities look like this facility does, because this facility was far nicer. I originally went hoping it was as good as that at least, it is far better. When members of this very body toured the facility, One of our Democratic colleagues, she doesn't wanna say it now, but when they were in there, looked and said, in her words, to quote, " Gee, things aren't bad." That's all I'll say. State health inspectors went into the kitchen and found the sanitation and physical condition satisfactory free of any sign of vermin. This is the state of New Jersey, state health inspectors, very blue state, very Democratic state, sent their health inspectors in, from the governor's office and they said everything was good. That's not what they had to say about New Jersey prisons, by the way. Despite all of it, weeks of false claims being made by Democrats have drawn crowds to Delaney Hall. Crowds have thrown projectiles, they had set fires, they blocked law enforcement vehicles, they blocked an ambulance, officers have been assu- assaulted, more than eighty people had to be arrested. This is what false narratives Chaos outside. Danger for men and women who are really doing their job. They're simply doing what has been asked of them. And they are local folks from the city of Newark. It endangers the workers of the facility, most of whom, as I said, are Newark residents. So when the mayor of Newark and the governor of New Jersey pulls away the police or spa- sparks anger among protesters, they endanger their own citizens. Again, where there is cooperation in many ways among county, state, local, and federal officials, we have very few problems anywhere in the country. It's where that cooperation doesn't exist that we have problems. ICE is not supposed to be doing crowd control. They should have help. They could have help. It's wrong that they don't get the help that they need. Democrats, on the other hand, continue to choose the side of illegal immigrants over the American people. Only a few weeks ago, they convened a field hearing to give voice to illegal criminal ill- immigrants in detention at Newark. And I would ask them, when's the last time they convened a hearing for all of the American families across this great country who were victims? the mothers, the fathers, the children who lost a loved one to a crime committed by somebody who was in this country illegally. When was the last time Democrats offered those families a hearing room? The people detained at Delaney Hall are not all random ins- innocents. And, you know, let me say this. I mean, for those of us that have sat here through hearings and you've seen children, that will never be okay. And you've seen parents and families that will never be okay, because their child was beaten, was raped, was murdered. There were no words for that. We just gotta make sure it doesn't happen, and it's wrong. We knowingly and purposely, not we, but others, let these individuals into our country, and they shouldn't have. And they should be detained. And by the way, If it's so bad at the Laney Hall, just so you know everybody, everybody has the option to self-deport. They will be helped if they wanna self-deport. They wanna leave, it's not good, they don't like the food, they don't like the housing, they don't like the recreation. I didn't even go into, by the way, the soccer fields. I didn't go into the gym that is better than, and I, you know, I try to hit the gym every day and I've been in a few nice gyms for many, many years, and this was up to any of them. any of them anywhere that I've seen. So why the false narratives? Why would anybody do this? I know it's false. I've seen it with my own eyes. The people who are saying the false narratives know the truth, but they keep pushing the big lie. And all it does is create chaos. It fuels hostility towards law enforcement officers. It creates crime. It creates problem. It separates the country. It divides the nation. None of it is good. It should stop. We just wanna keep our community safe. We don't want more kids to die. We don't want more brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, families to be hurt. And by the way, there's the hunger strike. Oh, the food's so bad they're making us eat maggots. Look at the food. They've got halal for those that are Islamic food. They've got kosher food. They've got if you are have diseases or illnesses or health issues. They've got restricted diets. Anybody on a restricted diet, low salt diet, et cetera, can get what they need there. But there was the hunger strike. We're not eating. We're on a hunger strike. We're gonna sacrifice. We're not gonna eat. What did we find out? I don't know if you all know. No, they were eating. They were given money by outside forces. They were going to the commissary and they were getting their potato chips and Twinkies and, you know you name whatever else and uh maybe it's New Jersey so they were getting some good New Jersey pizza I don't know but they were getting plenty of food, and in fact during that time of the supposed hunger strikes the population went down thirteen percent in Delaney Hall but the food intake at co- at the commissary tripled, tripled. They were eating good and they were eating a lot. So nobody's a victim here, nobody's a sacrificing, self-sacrificial person, I don't know if they were eating healthy food, they would have been better off eating the food they were supposed to because it was pretty damn healthy, it was a balanced diet. By the way, everybody who's got a registered dietitian telling them what they should eat every day, raise your hand. They do. They do, just so you know. I wanna thank the witnesses for being here. I wanna yield back. And now I wanna recognize my friend, the ranking member, Miss Crockett, for an opening statement.

Thank you so much, Mister Chairman, and thank you so much to the witnesses that are here, as well as other colleagues that are sitting in the audience. Um, we're back again for another edition of the Republican Party's great replacement theor- theory therapy session, where all the white men of the House Judiciary Committee lecture Americans on the importance of mass deportations, so that they preserve their so-called American values. like shooting and killing American citizens who are peacefully protesting, or stuffing hundreds of thousands of people into cages without proper nutrition or medical care. But nevertheless, in the time since our last hearing on this topic, more than forty people have died while in ICE custody, of which thirty percent have died at a facility run by GEO group, who happens to be the same private detention contractor that operates Delaney Hall. At multiple GEO facilities, individuals report dangerously substandard conditions, including mold, various outbreaks, including chicken pox, and insufficient food and water. Facilities operated by GEO have failed to comply with ICE's own national detention standards. In fact, on numerous occasions the government found the GEO-run facilities had, quote, incompetent leadership and that, quote, problematic medical care was occurring As a result, unquote, GEO has also been admonished by the courts, yet the chairman has not called anyone from the company to testify before this subcommittee, which is not surprising because they're pouring millions of dollars into Republican campaigns across the country. Let us play a game of follow the money, shall we? GEO group has donated more than one million to Donald Trump's Super PAC, nearly one million to Speaker Mike Johnson's Super PAC. hundreds of thousands to John Thune's Super PAC. So they spend millions to get Republicans elected around the country and in return, they get federal contracts to operate detention facilities. Republicans in Congress ignore the fact that people are dying in their facilities because of inhumane conditions and potentially criminal negligence. Also, since our last hearing on this topic, ICE agents have killed seven people, including the brutal murders of multiple American citizens. This is all occurring while DHS routinely violates federal law. In twenty twenty four, Congress passed a law that allows members of Congress to visit detention facilities without providing any prior notice. DHS has repeatedly violated this law. They have stopped members of Congress from entering detention facilities to conduct oversight visits. GEO group and DHS have not only blocked members of Congress from entering their buildings, they have also blocked the state of New Jersey and the city of Newark from conducting their own oversight. The governor has called for the facility to be closed. The city of Newark has sued GEO. The New Jersey Attorney General successfully sued GEO so that health inspectors must be allowed into the facility. So a record number of people are dying in ISIS custody, mainly at facilities operated by GEO. And ICE is shooting and killing a record amount of people, yet again the chairman has failed to call any government official to testify before this subcommittee. No one from ICE, no one from CBP, no one from the DOJ, and no one from the White House. So Democratic um, Democratic members of Congress, like Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, have been conducting oversight themselves. In May of twenty twenty five, Rec McIver was participating in a lawful congressional oversight visit at Delaney Hall with the Mayor of Newark and other members of Congress. During the visit, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, who wants to become the AG, ordered the violent arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. According to body cam footage worn by the violent federal officers, they arrested the mayor, quote, per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. The federal agents also said that they would arrest anyone who would quote, "get in their way." The federal agents then violently assaulted the mayor, Rep. McIver, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rep. Rep. Menendez. Todd Blanch is now prosecuting Rep. McIver instead of DHS and GEO officials who continue to break the law, while a record amount of people are dying in their facilities, or being shot and killed by DHS agents on the streets in America. This is one of the many reasons why Todd Blant should never become the Attorney General of the United States. Last week during his Senate confirmation hearing, the acting Attorney General said aloud what everyone here already knows, that he serves as the President's attorney. and not on behalf of the American people. Blanche blocked investigations into the murders of Rene Good and Alex Pretty. He gave Trump and his sons a super pardon that gives them lifelong protection from any investigation, audit, lawsuit, or prosecution by any federal agency for any violation of federal law. He created the two billion dollar fund to pay January six insurrectionists for attacking the Capitol. He's protecting the pedophiles and sex traffickers in the Epstein files. He's threatening reporters with prosecution. He's lied numerous times to federal judges and refused to abide by federal court orders. And just like the Republicans on this committee, he's part of the DHS cover-up that's using American tax paying dollars to brutalize tens of thousands of people, even killing them. And when I say people, I'm talking about citizens and otherwise. If the Republicans really wanted to know what was happening at Delaney Hall or any other detention facility, they would push for unannounced congressional and independent oversight. Since the Republicans claim to be Christian, they should be, they should open their Bibles and read Ephesians chapter five, verse eleven, that states, quote, " have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. I yield back.

Thank the ranking member. That was a combination of a speech and a little sermon at the end, right? Um, with that I will ask the chairman of the full committee, from the gentlemen from Ohio.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for this hearing. I wanna thank our witnesses for being here. Um, the chairman's been there. The chairman talked about the false narrative. He's been there and seen it. But the reason the Democrats don't want to talk about anything other than this, some of the things brought up by the ranking members in her uh in her opening statement is because they want to take the message away from what they've done. And I've said this in many hearings, I'll continue to say it. Step one, let in ten million illegal migrants in the Biden administration, have no border. Step two, create sanctuary jurisdictions which makes it difficult to remove those illegal migrants when they commit another crime. And then step three, don't pay the guys, don't fund the guys who do the removing. They shut down the government twice, two longest shutdowns in history, cuz they didn't wanna pay ICE agents, didn't wanna pay federal law enforcement to do their job. Eighteen cities, eleven states, three counties, and the District of Columbia are sanctuary jurisdictions. That represents almost a third of the country. where the politicians tell local law enforcement don't work with federal law enforcement when it comes to enforcing federal law. That is just dumb. I will continue to say that is stupid, not letting law enforcement work together to protect communities. And we have had witness after witness. One of the most powerful ones I've ever seen was Jessica Gorman, two weeks ago, who came and talked about what happened to her daughter in Chicago, student at Loyola University, out for a walk. and gets attacked and killed by an illegal migrant who'd committed another crime and was out on bail in that sanctuary jurisdiction. So they wanna talk about anything else except what's going on. And oh, by the way, these prosecutors, like Mister Krasner, Mister Descano, Alvin Bragg, all these prosecutors who though not just those three steps, let in ten million, create sanctuary jurisdictions, don't fund the guys who do the removing. The fourth step is we're gonna treat Illegal migrants who commit a crime, we're gonna treat them better than American citizens who commit the same crime, because they all have policies that say we will take into account the immigration status, deportation status of the migrant who committed a crime. When we determine what kind of charges we're gonna bring and what kind of plea agreement, we're gonna have. That is ridiculous as well. That is stupid as well, and frankly, I think unconstitutional. So that's why we have these hearings to highlight and underscore how ridiculous it is in now what represents almost a third of the country in these sanctuary jurisdictions. We have passed legislation on this committee, I hope, I hope sometime soon, the bill passes the House, moves to the Senate and actually becomes law because a third of the country would be much better off if we got rid of this concept. And with that, again I thank the Chairman for his work, for going there, and for this hearing, and would yield back.

Thank the Chairman and I recognize the ranking member. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by recognizing uh two of our colleagues in the audience, Representative Lam- uh, Lamonica McGiver, who represents New Jersey ten, and Representative Robyn Nenders, uh, New Jersey eight were with us today. Um. We're talking about exactly what the majority wants us to talk about because they control the agenda. They've called this hearing and we've been responding to them. The ambiguous title of today's hearing, False Narratives Surrounding Conditions at the Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center, naturally invites the question of whether the majority is seeking to debunk false narratives or entrench false narratives. One clue is that the title does not refer to facts at all. Another is that the majority has neither organized a committee visit to Delaney Hall, which we easily could have done, nor even undertaken the basic step of inviting an actual administration witness from ICE or the Department of Homeland Security to be with us here today to answer questions from members of Congress. That doesn't sound much like an intensive fact-based investigation to me. ICE and Homeland Security have been concocting false narratives to mask the inhumane conditions at Delaney Hall and other ICE detention facilities since Stephen Miller and Donald Trump launched their two thousand arrests a day quota onslaught against American communities and immigrants. An entire ecosystem of lies and corruption now governs at ICE and DHS where hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were spent by Christy Noem on lavish private jets, complete with bedrooms and wet bars and narcissistic public relations campaigns where no-bid government contracts are passed out to mega-donors, like Mar-a-Lago party gift bags, and where obscene corruption is stacked on top of obscene cruelty. DHS officials routinely lie to federal judges about institutional conditions and practices. They and their lawyers have been caught over eight hundred times brazenly defying court orders and lying to federal judges and magistrates. They are routinely excoriated in court for their lawlessness and their betrayal of the legal profession, but with no apparent effect on their behavior. American citizens like the people in this room have been held illegally for weeks by ICE. American citizens have been beaten, bloodied, and killed simply for exercising their First Amendment and their Second Amendment rights in a way disfavored by the masked paramilitary forces of ICE. The good chairman says, " Hey, if you don't like the wonderful accommodations at Delaney Hall, offered uh by uh the Department of Homeland Secur- Securities, uh you can just self-deport whenever you want. Actually, it's not true. Check out a federal district court decision handed down yesterday, Mister Chairman, on July twenty-first in the United States District Court of the District of New Jersey, uh Marlon Andreas Torres Gomez versus Luis Soto, Warden Delaney Hall. Well, this is a case where um a uh a detainee of the Deluxe accommodations uh got an agreement to get out on May twelfth um uh May twelfth while he was in custody and an immigration juror judge ordered that his self-deportation be allowed. And then it was set for June the tenth. And guess what? He had a plane ticket, he had an agreement with ICE, he had agreement with Delaney Hall, and then they blocked him from leaving the country at the airport, brought him back and said he was now in the custody of ICE all over again. Now this district court opinion strikes that down and says it's an absolute violation of habeas corpus in the agreement that ICE made. So, even if you assume that Delaney Hall has the kind of accommodations that Ghislaine Maxwell has, uh, down at the br- the prison camp she was uh switched to by Todd Blanch, uh when he liked what she had to say about Donald Trump's involvement with Epstein files and then suddenly she got the deluxe Trump hotel treatment, including use of a therapy puppy, uh room service in her cell and so on. Even if you assume that's going on with everybody uh at Delaney Hall you can't get out, at least m- maybe they'll change their tune now with this court decision, but we've heard about other cases like this um and you know one of the officers' to me the reason why there are really bad conditions in some of these facilities is because uh Stephen Miller and Donald Trump want people to leave. They don't want them to have uh their day before administrative judge and they want to make it as miserable as possible for people, so they self-deport. And so I leave it to the judgment of members of the committee whether that's the way that America should be treating people in this situation. Nonetheless, um Delaney Hall is a detention facility owned and operated by GeoGroup, a private for-profit prison contractor that has a billion dollar government contract to operate this facility for people being held on civil immigration charges. Roughly ninety percent of the eight hundred and ninety-one people detained at Delaney Hall in April had no criminal record. By DHS's own accounting, ninety percent had no criminal record. Of the one in ten detainees who did have a criminal record, the most common offenses were traffic violations. In May of this year, three hundred detainees launched a hunger and labor strike. They described being treated like animals. They and their lawyers reported meals of rotten meat, expired expired meals, meals with worms in them. Senator Andy Kim, our former house colleague, who conducted unannounced oversight visits of the facility, reported seeing milk so spoiled it had curdled completely. Detainees say the water is foul tasting and undrinkable. People were forced to sleep on floors. due to overcrowding and his billions of dollars of taxpayer money are pocketed by corporations in lavish inside contracts, detainees experience poor ventilation, extreme cold in winter, scalding showers, physical abuse by guards and a shortage of basic necessities. The medical conditions of detainees are alarming. Rita Lynn Harris, a detainee with glaucoma, anemia, high blood pressure and circulation problems, was denied her medications because facility officials called her care " cosmetic". Senator Kim met with a pregnant detainee who was not receiving appropriate OBGYN care. Another woman received no medical attention after she'd had a miscarriage. Delaney Hall is not an isolated case. Across the country, the bureaucratic indifference of ICE and extravagant profiteering of its corporate partners create ghastly conditions in many cases and in New Mexico, center a detainee experiencing unbearable dental pain that had been left untreated for months despite requ- repeated requests to see a dentist, Mister Chairman pulled out his own tooth. In Texas, the converging indifference of Christy Noem and the sadistic incompetence of RFK Junior produced an epidemic outbreak of measles. At Camp East Montana, ICE's largest detention center in the state, which then contributed to the measles pandemic, already uh raging in Texas. According to the Associated Press, detainees report that even the most basic care is denied there, a gauze bandage to protect an open foot wound, prenatal care for a high-risk pregnancy, a pillow to ease the pain of sleeping with advanced stomach cancer, sanitary pads for postpartum bleeding. All of these are complaints that have been filed with the facility. Since the administration took office, more than fifty people have died in ICE custody. More have died in custody in twenty twenty five than in any year in the last two decades. The rate of death in ICE custody is spiking because the conditions are simply worse than they've ever been before. ICE and DHS traffic in lawless violence, propaganda and disinformation to mask all the corruption and cruelty, which are the daily bread of the system. In Minneapolis, ICE and Border Patrol agents shot dead Rene Good and Alex Paretti in broad daylight. at point blank blank range and then defamed both of these innocent Americans, one a mother of three, another uh a VA nurse, by labeling them domestic terrorists. The new regime at DHS under Secretary Mullen uh well the jury is still out but we haven't seen much change yet. Just weeks ago in Texas, a nice officer killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a construction worker who had lived and worked in America without any incident. No criminal convictions or charges for thirty-five years. Federal law enforcement tried to justify the killing by saying officers found suspicious substances in his car. The suspicious substance turned out to be salt. In Maine, just a week later, an ICE officer with a history of psychological issues and domestic violence, he threw his thirteen-year-old daughter through a glass table, fatally shot twenty-six-year-old Johan Sebastian Guerrero, the father of a three-year-old girl whom he treated like a princess. according to Mother. At what point do we say enough is enough? The government isn't targeting the worst of the worst, it's behaving like the worst of the worst. DHS agents are arresting kindergartners, daycare teachers and parents, dropping off children at school. Roving gangs of officials are abducting children from their beds in the middle of the night or using them as bait in order to catch and arrest arrest their frantic parents. DHS is rounding up workers with lawful status working at small businesses as roofers, plumbers, landscapers, farm hands, and nurses. They're arresting refugees who went through stringent vetting to come here, and targeting immigrants who are following the law by showing up at their court hearings and ICE check-ins. At what point will we finally say " Enough to this, this is not America." So, uh, my friends, I'm happy to hear about what's happening in Delaney Hall, I should think we should do investigations about all of the detention centers across the country where people are complaining but this is a a nation that's built on immigration except for the descendants of people who were brought here, kidnapped, abducted, and uh turned into slaves, uh and except for the Native Americans, all of us are descendants of immigrants and the vast majority of people being held in these facilities um are not criminals of any variety. and we should get back to the rule of law in America and remember the Statue of Liberty, and remember what Tom Paine said when he got here in seventeen seventy-four. He said, " If this nation lives up to its values and ideals, it will become an asylum to humanity." Not an insane asylum, but a place of refuge for people seeking freedom from religious and intellectual and political repression from all over the world. Let's get back to the America that still lives in our hearts. I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.

I respect the ranking member, and I mean it, I do. I don't have the opportunity to respond to all that right now because of the rules. But I wanna say I thoroughly and robustly disagree with you. And I think there's a lot to go through there, but I just do not believe that that is accurate from what I have seen with my own eyes. And I'll still put that out there. So anybody wants to get a certified lie detector, can put me on it, put those folks that said they saw all this on it, and we'll see what happens. With that, without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witnesses. Mister Andrew R. Arthur. Mister Arthur is a resident fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. He previously served as a staffer to this committee, the oversight committee, and as an immigration judge with the Department of Justice. Mister Art DeQuato. I said that correctly, right? I thought I Mr. DeQuato is a Border Security Advisor at the Federation for American Immigration Reform. He previously served for more than two decades as a Border Patrol Agent. Always good to hear from people on the ground who really have seen and heard it. Mister Scott Makowski. Mister Makowski is a retired law enforcement officer who served more than twenty-four years with what was then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service. and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When he retired, Mister Mikalski was serving as the Deputy Director of ICE in New York City. And Mister, wanna try to say it right, Amal Sinha? Good. Mister Sinha is the Executive Director of the ACLU, New Jersey. He previously worked at the Innocence Project and with the New York Civil Liberties Union. We will begin by swearing you all in, please rise. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge information and belief? So help you God. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Thank you and please be seated. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask you summarize your testimony in five minutes. Mister Mikowski, you may begin.

Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and members of this subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to appear in front of you today. For more than twenty-four years I served in the federal government with immigration and customs enforcement, legacy immigration naturalization service. I retired as the deputy director in New York City in two thousand eighteen. I ran detention centers during that time in in ICE. I personally managed hunger strikes, in custody in medical emergencies, and I also oversaw correctional facility inspections. I spent more than three decades in the US Army, including as a non-commissioned officer in charge of a theater internment facility in Camp Cropper, Baghdad. I ran a detention facility in a war zone. So when I tell you how a place like the H- Delaney Hall actually works, I'm not theorizing. I'm describing what I did for a living, the views that I offer on my own, and they are not advice. Let me start with what the critics have been driving this hearing will not say out loud. Detention standards are not aspirational. Delaney Hall runs under enforceable national detention standards that are inspected, audited, by multiple entities and written down. When the detainee, when a detainee declares a hunger strike, there's nothing left for the officer's discretion. It triggers a written protocol. Medical referrals, daily monitoring, weigh-ins, a paper trail at every step. The facts are all available to you. They're written down. Congress can conduct oversight to reveal the real truth. Instead of manufacturing hoaxes for partisan gain, The record will not support the allegations that brought us here today. And I'll start with the hunger strike. DHS reported that commissary sales at the Laney Hall nearly tripled while it was supposedly underway. From eleven thousand five hundred dollars the week before May twenty-six, to more than thirty thousand dollars the week before January first. People who are starving themselves in protest do not triple commissary spending. It is not a hunger strike when the detainee refuses meals at chow time, only stuffed his face with hot Cheetos and Twinkies in his dormitory at night. Taking overcrowding. When social unrest started outside the Laney Hall, the claims of overcrowding fed that false narrative and contributed to the anger. The Laney Hall is built for a thousand beds. The population on that day was seven hundred sixty-six. On May twenty fifth, when these claims first surfaced, it fell to five hundred and twenty-one detainees by June fifteenth. That's barely half full. Take the food. New Jersey State Health Inspection, June eighth, found the kitchen sanitary, satisfactory, no evidence of rodents or vermin. The menu accommodates religious diets. The border czar showed up unannounced and ate the same meal served to the detainees every day and stated it was fine. Let's take the history of Delaney Hall. This building operated as an ICE detention site from two thousand eleven to two thousand seventeen New Jersey's leaders said nothing the standards haven't changed, the building hasn't changed, what changed is who sits in the White House. The double standard runs deeper. Last year, thirty-three people died in ICE facilities nationwide. In New Jersey's own prisons, an average of forty-eight die every single year. From two thousand eighteen to two thousand twenty-four, yet no one marched outside. any one of those state prisons, and this is never about conditions at Delaney Hall. And what, and and it's not about the money, because New Jersey has never minded the state collected, taken our money. The state has collected more than four million dollars fiscally, two thousand twenty-four to hold criminal aliens in its own department of corrections, and roughly five point eight million dollars in in state criminal aliens assistance programs. The Laney Hall also supports three hundred union jobs, which brings an estimated fifty million dollars in in the local economy activity. And the owners of the facility pay property taxes to the city of Newark, and they're steep. The state caches every single check. Then it drives to the gate for the cameras. And what gets sold to the public as a peaceful protest is really nothing else. It's a coordinated activity meant to obstruct federal law enforcement and to s- to cease operations. Newark has told its own police not to respond to calls at Delaney Hall. The Americans working inside that facility are taxpayers. They live and work in Newark and Essex County and are being denied police protection for doing a lawful job. The men and women at Delaney Hall enforced the laws that this Congress wrote under the standards stricter than any American jail that hold American citizens. They deserve better and that to be used as props. So let's do facts. This is a tell on how the critics operate. Senator Booker announced his visit on social media. Senator Kim came for a meeting. Congressman Robin Nenders and Congressman Watson Coleman turned the anniversary of their own visit into a bill signing and a rollout video in front of Delaney Hall. Congressman McIver McIver is currently under federal indictment on three counts. including two felonies for allegedly assaulting and impeding federal law enforcement officers at this facility.

Mister Mikkowski, I'm so sorry but your time has expired, if you can just wrap it up in a sentence or two.

Yep, uh uh well I want to take the moment and stop this and say when you want a moment, you bring a podium and a camera. Let's stop with the theatrics and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you for your service, Mister Mikkowski. Mister Del Cueto, you may begin.

Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett. Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. It is a privilege to be here. My name is Artel Cueto. I spent my career on the front lines of immigration enforcement and also served as a corrections officer in the state of Arizona. I now am a Border Security Advisor for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. And I'm here today because what is happening at the Laney Hall is part of something much larger and far more sinister than any facility in Newark. For four years, the Biden administration operated a deliberate anti-border policy, enabling millions of illegal aliens to enter our country. Between fiscal year twenty twenty one and twenty twenty four, CBP encountered more than one hundred and seventy thousand illegal aliens with criminal warrants or convictions at our borders. On top of that, nearly two thousand suspected terrorists and over one point seven million special interest aliens from c- from countries posing potential national risks, were encountered. Illegal aliens who should have been detained in facilities like Delaney Hall, and removed were instead released into the American communities. The consequences were devastating and could have been avoided. Sheridan Gorman, Josselyn Lung- Lungarae, and Lakin Riley among others were killed by illegal aliens that should have been dete- in detention facilities instead of roaming the streets. And while violent crime is the most visible consequence of illegal immigration, it is far from the only one. Illegal immigrants impose considerable costs on every American taxpayer, every American renter, and every American worker, competing for employment in the sectors most affected by illegal alien labor, not to mention the enormous strain on our public benefits. The Trump administration is now working to reverse that damage by strengthening and expanding detention capacity. And these efforts are working, which is exactly why these anti-border radicals are increasingly desperate. The allegations against Delaney Hall simply do not hold up to the facts. During the period when a hunger strike was claimed to be going on, commission commissary sales at that facility surged a hundred and sixty-one percent. White House boarders are Tom Holman visited and announced and ate the same food as detainees and reported they were ordering from the commissary in their cells. The facts are that ICE provides three dietician-approved meals a day on site, medical care, and access to family and counseling. It's not and it's not only activists spreading these lies. It's elected officials and members of Congress. In May twenty twenty five, New York Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested after attempting to force his way into the Laney Hall facility. Congress woman, LaMonica McIver, was also charged following the incident. Many more have repeated their calls to abolish ICE. New Jersey Governor Mike Sherrill was forced to acknowledge that the extreme elements in these protests and that many of the so-called protesters were not even from New Jersey. In response to her call for demonstrators to bring the temperature down, the Democratic Socialists of America, New Jersey chapter, and the Climate Revolution Action Network of New Jersey responded by declaring " we're going to turn up the noise." The goal of this movements are clear. GSA supports abolishing ICE and the end of all immigration detention. New York City Mayor supports abolishing ICE. Sitting members of Gar- Congress also agree. Make no mistake, the radical anti-border crowd is increasingly setting the agenda. These are not reasonable critiques or policy alternatives. They're blatant attacks on the US sovereignty and immigration enforcement itself. This type of rhetoric from our elected officials not only raises the temperature it emboldens protesters into confrontations, and incites more violence. Continuing to liken ICE officers to Nazis will continue to lead to the radical taking matters into their own hands. Since the beginning of President Trump's second term, the NHS has documented a hundred and one one thousand three hundred percent increase in assaults on ICE agents. Thirty-two hundred percent increase in vehicular attacks and eight thousand percent increase in death threats. Why are these radical activists and politicians targeting Delaney Hall and other detention facilities? It's simple. Detention works. More illegal aliens are opting for voluntary departure and border crossings have dropped dramatically since President Trump took over office. Without detention, the message to every would-be border crosser is that there are no consequences. The smear campaign against Delaney Hall is part of a broader assault on immigration enforcement and on the men and women in uniform, like those who I proudly served with in the United States Border Patrol. They are tasked with carrying out the job that Congress gave them. through their immigration laws. I encourage Congress to stand with the men and women of ICE and the men and women of Border Patrol and support them in doing their jobs, not incite more violence. Thank you again for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you for your service. And we will now move to Mister Arthur.

Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, Ranking Member Raskin, Mister Johnson. Thank you for inviting me here today. First, a confession. I've never been to Delaney Hall and I've never toured the facility to assess any of the allegations that have been made about it. That said, for more than eight years, including six as a staffer for this committee, I exercised oversight jurisdiction over ICE detention facilities and visited many. In addition, I served for an additional eight years as an immigration judge at the York County prison in Pennsylvania which contracted with ICE for detention space. I walked the facility, I ate in the dining hall, and I worked out in the rate weight room. Consequently, I am intimately familiar with how ICE detains aliens and the national detention standards under which it operates. As the Third Circuit described it last year, the elephant in the room today is the fact that state and local officials in New Jersey oppose immigration detention in the Garden State. First, the legislature enacted A B fifty-two O seven to prohibit entities there from contracting with ICE to run uh detention facilities. The third circuit subsequently concluded that this law is applied to ICE's Elizabeth detention facility was an improper attempt to quote dictate the manner in which the federal immigration function is carried out close quote in a violation of the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity. Such efforts have continued however and shortly after Gio announced it would be opening Delaney Hall ICE detention, the mayor vowed to padlock quote unquote the facility, and then the city sued Gio complaining Delaney Hall didn't receive proper permits, and local officials had denied access. Gio was requested the case be dismissed because ICE wasn't added as a party, but in any event, it appears city inspectors have subsequently been allowed access. Nonetheless, in June, the state sued Gio, contending health inspectors had been denied quote full access close quote to Delaney Hall, when they arrived in response to conditions there. In response, DOJ complained about the politicization of the issue while also contending ICE has, quote, " authorized access to the facility for a reasonable and appropriate inspection pursuant to the state's written request," close quote. Both cases are ongoing, but key constitutional federal doctrines, as I laid out in my, uh, written testimony, will govern the court's resolution of each. Most notable is what I talked about before, intergovernmental immunity, a principle under which state attempts to regulate the federal government directly or state actions that discriminate against the U S. government or those with whom it deals are invalid. While those doctor doctrines may invalidate state action, they cannot and should not restrict federal oversight, including and especially congressional oversight. Such oversight, as I explained at the outset, was my stock in trade. more than eight years. But both my bosses and I were, some of whom are surrounding us today, uh, were always conscious of performing it in such a way so as not to impede the very functions that we were investigating. That was particularly true when it came to immigration detention. The security of facilities and the safety of the officers and, uh, detainees therein was always paramount, and I was always willing to comply with reasonable restrictions imposed on me when touring the facilities, and I continue to believe, with due respect, that is the appropriate policy. Skepticism, of course, is the best policy when conducting oversight, and there is always a danger that what Congress is being told isn't the full truth. There are, however, numerous safeguards built into the system to ensure that problems aren't hidden and the les legislative branch is not deceived. By my camp, five congressional committees oversee ICE detention. to say nothing of the DHS inspector general, other inter internal watchdogs, office of professional responsibility, et cetera, the government accountability office, the media, and internal whistleblowers. Moreover, ICE's detention standards are contractual and as enforceable as any contract and the agency expects performance. I understand that many oppose immigration detention, but I'll also note that the first law passed this Congress was the Lake and Riley Act, which mandated detention and empowered the states to sue to ensure it occurs. You can understand why ICE officers in New Jersey and elsewhere feel like they're getting whipsawed by this, uh, body. Finally, even if local politicians successfully forced ICE detention out of New Jersey, that doesn't mean aliens would be released. Instead, they'd be sent far away from their families and their lawyers, and that would not make their cases or their plights any easier. Again, I thank you for your time and I look forward to your questions. And I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Arthur. Mr. Sina, you may begin.

Chairman Van Der Rohe, Ranking Member Crockett, uh, Committee Chair Jordan, uh, Ranking Member Raskin, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Uh, my name is Amol Sinha. I lead the ACLU of New Jersey. Uh, for over a hundred five years the ACLU has fought against abuses of power uh for and for the civil rights and liberties of all Americans under both Democratic and Republican administrations alike. We've represented individuals and institut- institutions across the ideological spectrum, recently including a supporter of President Trump's in New Jersey, the NRA, Black Lives Matter leaders, students, veterans, and many more, all with one common goal, to uphold the promises of the Constitution. I'm here today to share what people in New Jersey and across the country are facing at the hands of an agency that has acted with no accountability for far too long. In just the past two weeks, two fathers were shot dead by ICE agents. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was gunned down in the streets of Houston. Johan Sebastian Doron Guerrero was killed outside his family's apartment in Maine. His three-year-old daughter nearby, still in her bluey pajamas. These killings happened in broad daylight. in front of witnesses with cell phone cameras rolling. And this is what happens when the whole country is watching. What confidence can we possibly have behind the locked doors of a facility like Delaney Hall? I want to address the premise of this hearing directly. Its title suggests that reports of maltreatment at Delaney Hall are a false narrative. That claim does not survive contact with the record. The people detained at Delaney Hall have told us in their own words, and I quote, " They tell us we have no rights here." I met with an individual recently detained there. When he arrived, the food smelled so rancid he didn't eat for three days. When he finally ate to avoid starving, he was in severe pain. He asked a guard for a doctor. The guard said that he only spoke English and couldn't help. It took seven more days for a doctor to finally see him, and by the time he was released, the pain was so severe that he ended up in the hospital for a week requiring surgery for a serious GI condition that he developed while in detention. I wish I could tell you that his case was unusual, but I could sit here and tell you about the man denied his wheelchair for forty days, the eighteen-year-old denied the ability to finish high school on time, the husband who lost so much weight that even lying down became physically painful. This is the pattern. The lack of access to medical care, the coercion to sign purportedly voluntary departure agreements, the unsanitary conditions in inedible food, the broken air conditioning and hundred degree temperatures. Every person I've t- spoken with, every letter that has come out of that facility, tells some version of a similar account. When these individuals saw no other option, hundreds of them engaged in the hunger and labor strike for weeks, to call intention to the w- injustices. And I think we can all agree on a simple truth. No one should have to starve themselves for the government to recognize their humanity. In turn, ICE responded with pepper spray solitary confinement and punitive transfers. People are dying at these facilities at an alarming rate. More than fifty people have died in ICE custody under this administration, the deadliest period on record. John Wilson Brutus died in ICE custody after one day of being detained at Delaney Hall. ICE is sending a chilling message to every family in New Jersey and across the country. Being an immigrant and exercising your solidarity with immigrants is unsafe. The Trump administration has told us repeatedly that ICE is going after the worst criminal offenders, and claims that whose detained in facility s- uh, like Delaney Hall are exactly those folks. In fact, this administration's own data undercuts that false narrative. Over seventy percent of the people held at Delaney Hall have no criminal history whatsoever. Nearly ninety percent have no criminal conviction. Eighty-four percent h- don't have a final order of removal. We're spending billions of taxpayer dollars detaining people who pose no threat while GeoGroup pockets over sixty million dollars a year from Delaney Hall alone. Delaney Hall is not an outlier. This year alone there have been at least six other hunger strikes in ICE facilities nationwide. When you pour billions of dollars into a detention infrastructure that's already riddled with abuse with no oversight, it comes at a human cost. The people who participated in the hunger strike at Delaney Hall put their bodies on the line. We must act now. If this sub- subcommittee is truly concerned about the narrative around Delaney Hall, there's a simple fix. End the cover-up by ICE and the Geo group. If you want the truth about what's happening at Delaney Hall and every facility like it, open it up to independent, unannounced, uncensored oversight. Allow the press in. Allow members of Congress in. Allow advocacy organizations in for full access. Pass the Dita- Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act and conduct oversight as members of Congress are empowered to do. Thank you, and I'm I look forward to your questions.

Thank you for your testimony. I will yield five minutes to myself. Um, it's come to my attention, you know, Martin Soto, some of you should know that name. He's the gentleman who led the hunger strike. Some folks were making him out to be a hero, the self-sacrificial man who loved America so much, and these poor immigrants and so forth. So we have just gotten some information about him and everybody can check this out. It's all accurate. You know, he was, he's a Peruvian nationally, he was supposedly picked up while purchasing some diapers, uh according to his wife. Well, here's the real deal. The documents that was obtained by the committee on February second, uh Soto was incarcerated at Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearney New Jersey which is just outside Newark New Jersey. Soto was arrested by Kearney police the previous day on February first, twenty twenty six, for a charge of domestic violence. He committed assault, purposely causing bodily injury, sp- sp- specifically by using his hands, open and close, to strike his wife in the face, causing scratches and cuts to her face and neck. He also placed a hand over her mouth so she couldn't scream while she was being beaten. He ain't my hero. It's not what I call a hero. It's the guy who led the hunger strike. And that's the point I wanna make, man. I just think that folks are on the wrong, some folks, my friends to the left, physically and actually I guess philosophically here, I think they're on the wrong side of this, I really do. I mean, there are good people and people that aren't so good, I'm getting real basic here, bad people need to be incarcerated, we need to keep good families and good people safe, the chairman just, you know, listed a whole number people we can go through, I don't wanna bore you of all the families, people just like you, men and women and children that have been hurt, lives lost, um it's horrible. Why are we, why is it always that the other side is on their side? I don't get it. I sincerely, I do not get it, I don't understand it, but for one, I'm not gonna tolerate it, cuz it's wrong. So I wanna just, you know, segue a little bit into something else, but it's it's all related. Cuz we all hear all this anti- uh, you know, law enforcement, no more ICE, no more law enforcement. There are some of those now on the other side of the aisle. I'm not saying these folks here, but there are people that wanna abolish ICE completely, wanna abolish law enforcement, abolish prisons, abolish corrections. Do you all, and I'm gonna ask the three of you, and if you wanna answer you can too, it's gonna be very quick. answers because I'm used up a lot of time already. The July twentieth attack outside twenty-six Federal Plaza, does that res- reflect an increasing threat to federal immigration facilities and the personnel who work there who I feel sorry for? In other words, these folks are at risk, they're just doing their job, they're the good guys, they're being responsible, trying to do their job, and they're at risk of violent attack, in my opinion. Mister Mikalski, in a few words.

Uh. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, one hundred percent. Um, everybody knows the twenty-six federal plaza houses ice and other federal agencies and it just an example of what we dealt with every day in New York City.

Yeah, man, we've got people in leadership that fire these people up, that go over there and cause all this havoc and hurt other people in law enforcement. I mean, it's hard to be at any level of law enforcement these days. It's even hard for the I spoke to some of the state troopers and they can't say anything on the record in New Jersey. they were doing a great job. And because the left didn't want them there anymore, they were doing a great job and everybody was working together, ICE was safe, they were safe, the people inside were safe, they were pulled away. Because they didn't want that, wanted chaos. Mister Del Cueto.

Yes, sir, absolutely. That and other attacks that have also happened at ICE facilities in the last several months are a direct result of that.

I The words we use, the inflammatory rhetoric, God help us, Mister Arthur, quickly.

Thank you, uh, Mister Chairman. Yeah, you know, I will refer back to the hundred year sentence that was handed out for the mastermind of the attack at the Alvarado detention facility in Alvarado, Texas. You know, these are serious crimes. Um, they're a danger. When I served, I was, uh, threatened, I could talk about it in a more private setting if you'd like. But yeah, it's a real problem. it's always been a real problem and the rhetoric has been getting worse.

And it's getting worse. Yep. Mister Sienha, quickly, just to show I'm fair.

Uh, Chairman, look, w- whenever somebody conducts a violent act, uh, they are held accountable by the criminal legal system. Uh, I don't think it has to do with the words being used.

I I I don't um forgive me, but I don't believe that. I believe politics enters into it. I don't think they're always held liable. It depends where the process takes place. And in some of these blue cities and blue uh localities, they're not held responsible. And they're made out to be heroes. Violence against law enforcement has become popular. And it's wrong. And I'm tired of it. I think most Americans are too. Um, and I'm over my time. With that, I will, ranking member, remind me who's not, yes, Mister Johnson. Mister Johnson, the gentleman from Georgia.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister Chairman, I think Americans are getting tired of seeing each other shot down in the streets by rogue, renegade, uh reckless, uh ICE agents. And this hearing uh is entitled " False Narratives surrounding conditions at the Delaney Hall ICE detention center." That was the topic of the discussion today uh what we got from uh Mister Arthur is a dissertation on the uh restrictions on state regulation of uh federal functions. I'm gonna read your paper uh tonight as I put myself to sleep.

Thank you, Mister Johnson.

And um and then uh not a single witness in here has testified that uh it's false that um you know what's happening at uh Delana Hall Delaney Hall or overcrowded sales crammed with inmates, not a single Republican witness refuted that. Not a single Republican witness commented about the denial of access to toilets and clean drinking water at Delaney Hall. Nobody talked about food being adulterated and inedible at Delaney Hall. Not a single Republican MAGA witness testified about the denial of medical care to uh detainees. And so the only person who testified about that was Mr. Sinha and he told us of the horrors of what's going on uh inside Delaney Hall. And and I suspect that uh the chairman, when he took his visit, he announced ahead of time that he was going. And so what did they do? They rolled out the red carpet form and showed him exactly what they wanted him to see and then probably fed him a steak dinner afterwards with a glass of champagne and a cigar. And so today he is here to tell you about what's going on at Delaney Hall, Oh. but I would I would uh exclaim to you that perhaps you should call my colleague, LaMonica MacGyver, who is sitting here with us today About six or seven months uh pregnant, she and her husband expecting their second child, having to go through the trauma of a um persecution by the uh Trump um um Justice Department, Todd Blanch Justice Department. Uh but she's here, she's been on unannounced visits, and she could tell you exactly uh what's happening at Delaney Hall. She could back up what Mister Sinha has has said. But let me ask you, uh, mister, uh, Mirchalski, um, you've never worked for a for-profit, uh, corporation that runs for-profit detention facilities, have you?

Congressman, thanks for the question.

Have you, yes or no?

No. No.

And, um, and when's the last time you visited Delaney Hall?

When Delaney before I retired, sir, before closing two thousand seventeen.

That was back in twenty eighteen. Yeah, that's been what?

I don't know if you heard me.

Almost ten years ago. What about you, uh, Mr. Del Sueto? When's the last time you visited uh Delaney Hall?

Del Cueto, sir.

Del Cueto, I'm sorry.

I have not visited Delaney Hall.

Never in your life.

No, sir, but I have been at various different immigration facilities that have detained people.

And so you have pers- you you have no personal knowledge,

My personal knowledge would be from seeing other immigration

You've never been to Delaney Hall though.

I haven't, but I've been to numerous other immigration detention facilities.

But what you what you saw at uh your detention facilities, were those f- public or private, by the way?

They were both

You've always worked for public uh

No, sir, they were both private and public, as well as state-run facilities.

Right, but you don't know what's going on at Delaney Hall. Let me ask Mister Sinha. Mister Sinha, can you tell us more about uh the fifty people who have died in ICE custody, uh, since Trump returned to office? And can you opine on the fact that twenty twenty six is already the deadliest year in immigration detention since the Department of Homeland Security was founded?

Thank you for the question, uh, Congressman.

I'll let you answer that question and then the gentleman's time is expired.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. the uh the number of deaths is disproportionate to even the increase of uh detention in this country. About the the number of people detained uh across the country has increased by seventy-seven percent and also uh the deaths in custody have detain- have increased by three hundred percent. Um so we're talking about a radical increase in the number of people that are being uh that are killed uh or dying in uh while detained in in immigration detention. That's right.

It's a it's a shame that we are allowing that. Now, geo group that have been here to defend themselves,

Gentlemen, gentlemen, time has expired.

but they were not called, and uh nor were ICE or Customs and Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection.

The gentleman's time has expired.

Nobody called, just uh three guys with no personal knowledge, with that idea of bad.

I thank the gentleman. I definitely did not get a Red Corp uh a cigar. champagne or a steak dinner. But Hank, you should probably do all that for me, all the aggravation you give me on this committee. With that, I ask the gentleman, the chairman from the great state of Ohio.

Mr. Mikalski, is it easier to pick up a criminal on the street or at the detention center?

Congressman, thank you, um, for the question. Um, it's always safer, uh, facility to facility.

Yeah, it is, is, is, but that's what's saying. jurisdiction's all about. You got a detainer notice, federal government, federal law enforcement knows that the migrant in the detention center, the local detention center, entered the country illegally, but has has been alleged to commit some other crime, but there's a there's a detainer notice, hold that guy, let us come get him there instead of out on the street, right?

Yes, Congressman.

Yeah, and I mean, in just simple terms, th- I I used the term earlier, but I don't know what anyone better. This is like really just Do you think it's a dumb policy, sanctuary juris- do you think it's just a dumb policy that these local jurisdictions have?

I think it's absurd.

Mister Del Queto?

I believe it creates a magnet for criminal behavior in our country.

Yeah, Mister Arthur, what what do you think, think it's a bad idea?

It's a horrible idea, and when I started in immigration in the uh mid nineties, there were maybe a handful of uh sanctuary jurisdictions, but every cop wanted, every police department wanted to hand criminals over to the ins to get them off of the streets so they don't put your

Do do sanctuary jurisdictions create tension between federal state and local law enforcement?

without a doubt

Yeah, mister Del Cueto?

Absolutely it does.

Mister Mikalski?

Absolutely, just look at New Jersey, he's a great example of that.

Yeah. And and that doesn't help all of this doesn't help but I think s- s- you've already some of you already talked about, the safety w- concerns for law enforcement for the public and frankly for the migrant right jeopardizing the safety of everyone when you have these policies in place you all agree with that

yes congressman

yeah

yes congressman

and yet we have as again we did the research almost a third of the country thirty one and a half percent of the country because you got eighteen big blue cities eighteen big or eleven big blue states you have this thing and we've actually seen it play out Denver, Colorado, illegal migrant who had committed another crime in the detention center. The notice gets sent to him, the detention center, will you hold this migrant until we get there? They stamp on the form, no, we're gonna release him to the streets, release him to the streets. An ICE agent was hurt while apprehending this individual on the street. Again, just ridiculous, didn't need to happen. So, uh, uh, again, we're gonna keep talking about this. Oh, and the and the real concern too is that the ICE agent was hurt there, but the situations where it could have been prevented, the person is released to the streets, and then they go harm, in some cases kill, American citizens. And frankly, if that happens in over in Fairfax County, Mister Descana will take into account the person's immigration status, it's right in his policy when deciding what to charge that individual with. Just adding insult to injury, adding dumbness on top of dumbness, I mean, it's just like that is crazy. Um So this is something that just has to change. And the we talk about having safer streets and everything else for the public. This is just it's just so, so wrong. And I think it's all part of the left's plan. Let in ten million, as I said earlier, create sanctuary jurisdictions, don't fund people like Mister Mikalski, ICE agents who go out there and enforce the law, and then have prosecutors who do their r- ridiculous charging and plea bargain decisions and create this unsafe environment. That is what the left wants today and that's what they're carrying out. And again, it makes absolutely no sense. I wanna thank the chairman for his good work on overseeing this and calling attention to what's going on at Delaney Center where the left has said all these terrible things are happened but he's visited there and just hasn't seen it. And I'll yield the last minute back to the chairman of the subcommittee for any questions or comments he has.

Um, I I wanna thank you and I think the chairman of the full committee makes a good point. um, and really to focus in in plain English what people, so they understand it. Because we have sanctuary cities, states, jurisdictions, we let people out onto the streets, some of whom are violent, dangerous felons, get out. We don't cooperate with ICE, therefore ICE finds itself in the middle of dangerous situations, where the illegal can get hurt, they can get hurt or just people that are involved can get hurt. That's where the real fault is. If we did everything the right way, which you all are willing to do, we wouldn't have the issue. And quite frankly, that's why so many of the problems are in blue jurisdictions. We should have never let these people out. And I also would say Delaney Hall are not just a bunch of nice people. There may be some in there who aren't felons, but there are absolutely felons. drug dealers, uh, rapists, violent people that are held there. We don't want them outside. And f- and also, by the way, speaking about the conditions there, the Inspector General in New Jersey inspected the facilities, the state facilities in New Jersey far worse. They have to stand while they eat, crowded conditions, temperatures that go into the nineties, but nobody says anything about them. because it's a blue jurisdiction. It just isn't fair.

Okay.

And what's good for one should be good for the other. With that, I have a few UCs uh that I wanna put in for the record uh from some local media. Delaney Hall menu options, Delaney Hall's menu options better than many, Jersey school lunch choices, fajitas, stir-fry, barbecue chickens, see the food options provided to Delaney Hall. That was uh NJ dot com. This is the New York Inspectors finally got into the kitchen at ISIS Delaney Hall. Here's what they found, and the details, the good conditions there, it's also NewJersey.com. Uh the final test boarders are Tom Holman ate the same meal as the detainees ate and he did just fine. Delaney Hall snack purchases cast doubt on what was supposed to be a real hunger strike in reports. And that was also I believe, I'm trying to see what who that was. Fox News, Fox News, thank you. Okay, with that being said, I think we are next, I'm gonna recognize the ranking member of the full committee.

Thank you kindly, Mister Chairman, I think you just went over two minutes and twenty five seconds, so I'd appreciate a similar courtesy from my side.

That means he's gonna talk a lot.

You've you've translated properly. Look, there's some things that we can all agree on here. Um We should take violent attacks on the police extremely seriously, and reject it in every circumstance. Mister Mikalski, you've spoken passionately against violent assault on the police. Um, do you think it's a good idea to pardon felons convicted of violently assaulting police officers, without looking at their individual criminal record, or the threat that they may still pose to society?

I'm sorry, Congressman, can you just repeat the question?

Do you think it's a good idea to pardon convicted felons who were convicted of violently assaulting police officers, without consulting either their prior criminal history or the chances that they will re-offend.

Um, sir, that that's up to the courts. I I don't

Do you have no position on that? How about you, Mr. Del Cuerta?

Not no position.

Do you think that's a good idea?

Uh, that would be up to the courts, sir, and it would be possibly a case-by-case basis.

Okay, Mr. Arthur, what do you think about that?

It because it's a part.

All right, Mister Sinan, wha- what do you think about pardoning violent offenders who attack the police, brutalizing them in many cases, without consulting their prior criminal history or the chances that they'll re-offend?

I think there has to be a thorough review of of the facts of a certain uh person's background and

Individualized review? Or just

Individualized review. Um, uh, you know, I I agree with, uh, clemency as a tool, and the executives should use clemency frequently.

Okay.

Uh, but there has to be a review.

The the chairman said, " Violence against law enforcement is wrong, I'm sick of it, and we can't tolerate it." And I agree with that, but President Trump pardoned more than fifteen hundred people, hundreds of whom had violently assaulted our police officers, brutalizing them, injuring them, giving them traumatic brain injuries, concussions, heart attacks, strokes. without looking at a single one's individualized records, just partnering them, all of them, en masse. And guess what? Ninety-seven of them have already gone on to re-offend. Today, they've been convicted of, so far, child sexual assault, home invasion, production of child pornography, conspiracy to murder an FBI agent, kidnapping, reckless homicide, domestic violence by strangulation, stalking, drug trafficking, burglary, and a lot more. We don't have time to get into all of them. One guy Andrew Paul Johnson, this guy was still in prison, Trump pardoned him, gave him clemency, he got out of prison, and a few weeks later went and sexually assaulted a twelve year old boy and a twelve year old girl and then tried to stop them from reporting him by saying he would give them some of the money that he gets from Donald Trump because he's a J sixer and they're all gonna get millions of dollars. So just to give you a sense of what's going on out there, so for those people who are categorically denouncing violence against the police, I'd like you guys to take that to heart. and talk to some of the Capitol officers who are protecting us here today. You'll see them on your way out. Well, look. Uh, Lorenzo Salgada Arajo was a fifty-two year old construction worker, an immigrant who'd lived in Houston for thirty-five years. He had no criminal record, no charges, no arrests. On July seventh, he left home to pick up his brother and two coworkers to go work at a construction site of an American business. ICE agents in two unmarked cars, looking for someone else, saw him and without turning on any lights or without any indication of who they were, began chasing his van. So, they surrounded his vehicle and attempted to force him off the road. Moments later, an ICE agent who was not wearing a body camera fired through Mister Salgado's passenger side window killing the father of three. Mister Salgado had no record. He was not subject to a detention order. He was trying to go to work. Now, mister Mikalski, you worked for ICE, you trained officers. Is it ever acceptable for ICE agents to pursue a vehicle in an unmarked car, without using their lights or sirens? Do you know the rules on that?

Sir, uh, so since I retired, uh, policies may have changed, but the I don't believe, uh, the policy pursuits were, uh, allowed.

Yeah. It's in the ICE field manual. I've got the regulation right here, eight CFR two eighty seven point eight, saying that a designated pursu- pursued vehicle is defined only as a vehicle equipped with emergency lights and siren placed in or on the vehicle that emit audible and visual signals." They didn't have that and now this father of three is dead. Six days later, uh, Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, a twenty-six year old father, left his home, crossed the country, and bit of Fort Main to go to work to support his young family. He didn't get far. ICE agents driving an unmarked SUV rammed his vehicle, surrounded his car with guns drawn and shot him in the head in front of his three-year-old daughter. And again, they weren't looking for him. They were going to look for somebody else, but they saw him and then chased him down and shot him in front of his daughter. She watched as ICE agents handcuffed her father's lifeless body to the steering wheel. The agent who killed him wasn't wearing a body camera. What's more, he had a history of serious domestic violence. and he'd been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He once threw boiling water in the face of his ex-wife, first wife, while she was holding their child. His wife testified that he was a danger to the society, and yet he was armed and deputized by ICE to go out and terrify people. Mister Del Cuerto, you served as a Border Patrol agent for twenty years. Should DHS be doing a background check screen for a history of domestic violence and psychiatric illness?

They do they do thorough background investigations if doesn't if something doesn't get reported. However, that's

Should they sh- wait, no, should, my question is, should they do one?

They do one already.

No, they did not do one in this case. It did not happen. So, uh, that did not happen, but it should happen, but it is typical now of ISIS hiring practices. Bring everybody in, just like Donald Trump's parties. We don't care really what your background is. clothe you with the power of the federal government, turning our society upside down, turning Americans against each other, and having our officers shoot our people like Alex Pretty and Rene Good, dead at point blank range in the streets of America. That's what this has led to. I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen. And I ask I recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I I just want to clarify one thing because there is this perception that is consistently put out there that if you are a Democrat you are anti-law enforcement, that you are against the police. We are not anti-law enforcement. In fact, this weekend I will be speaking at a national convention for law enforcement. So let me be clear about something. The most pro-law enforcement thing that you could ever do is making sure that the bad apples are absolutely treated as that because bad officers make good officers look terrible. And that is why real law enforcement has no problems when Democrats decide that they actually want to crack down and recognize that even law enforcement officers can commit crimes cuz the last time I checked, I don't understand who should be allowed to gun somebody down in the middle of the street. It's not armed and seemingly just has a little bit of melanin and when it comes to uh Alex Pretty, and Renee Good, that wasn't even the reasons. It was the fact that they had the audacity to stand for people that had melanin. So, excuse me, but we are not anti-law enforcement. Let's put that on the record. Secondly, I wanna deal with something that the ranking member opened up with earlier when he talked about Ghislaine Maxwell. The reality is that Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted by a jury of her peers and sentenced to twenty years in a federal prison. Yet somehow Ghislaine Maxwell has more privileges than people who aren't accused of going out and sexually assaulting children. This is why we have a problem, because it seems like our colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to want to protect pedophiles while at the same time going after people most of them who have come to this country seeking a better life, seeking the America that we sell to the rest of the world, which is the land of opportunity and the land of the free. That is what we have sold the world on, yet seemingly that's not what's happening, when they arrive when they say that in their country there is something that is causing them to need to seek asylum from the harms that are taking place in their countries. Now let me get to my official remarks before we have to go vote. It seems like those super PAC bans are making these Republicans dance. Isn't it interesting that thousands of white people storming the US Capitol and beating police officers made it home safely? But brown people posing no threat to ICE agents are suddenly killed in cold blood. The government pardoned those January six rioters, yet the same government is now calling the nonwhite people, most of whom have no criminal record, quote, terrorists and criminals. Mister, why do you think this is?

Thank you for the question, ranking member Crockett. Look.

And I know you could talk forever, but just give me a little something.

Uh, look, I I I think every uh every legal system, every crimi- the criminal legal system, the immigration system is rife with racial injustice. We are seeing it play out in the streets every single day.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. To the best of your knowledge, did any of the protesters at Delaney Hall brutally bleep beat police officers with steel pipes? Um, what about spraying police officers with bear spray?

No.

What about tasing officers in the neck or stomping their heads?

No.

Who would you rather live next to, one of the thousands of immigrants without criminal records, but are being targeted by ICE, or someone like David Daniel, a Trump supporter who was pardoned but was found to be in possession of child pornography and charged with sexual exploitation of a minor?

I would rather live next to one of the thousand immigrants.

Now, this Justice Department has taken the unprecedented step. By criminally charging Congresswoman McIver, why do you think the Republicans in Congress are louder about nonviolent immigrants without criminal records but silent about the executive branch prosecuting a member of the legislative branch for conducting legitimate legislative business?

Thank you for bringing up the case against Ms. McIver. Look, every single member of Congress should be outraged by what's happening to her, uh, regardless of party, because they are going after a Congresswoman for doing her job. And that's why we at the ACLU had filed an amicus brief in her su- in support of her, uh, and - and calling for the charges to be dropped. Uh, they are going after a sitting Congresswoman for a- for doing her job and nothing else. Uh, and - and we're gonna continue fighting for her.

Thank you. My next question was about your amicus brief. But I'll move on now, cuz you already brought it up. We've already established, uh, in this hearing, um, Not just in this hearing, but honestly the American people are not crazy. The American people are outraged. They're trying to pretend as if people are just going to Delaney Hall and it's simply because Delaney Hall is just I don't know the victim in this particular set of circumstances but no one today as we've gone through this hearing, has decided to say the name of John Brutus, a forty-one year old asylum seeker.

I would.

So here was, he was an asylum seeker. December twelfth, twenty twenty five, he ended up dying in Delaney Hall. he had only been in Delaney Hall for one day. So while some may want to pretend as if there's nothing to see, in fact, we should have had a hearing that would have allowed us to get to the bottom of, and potentially seek justice, and make sure that other people don't die in our custody, um, in an unwarranted and unlawful way. That is what I want to do, Mister Chairman, and I hope that we can move forward with making sure that anyone who is taken into our immigration system that they are taken in and they are given their day in court and they get due process, but their constitutional rights are not violated. Thank you and I'll yield.

Thank the ranking member, and that concludes today's hearing. We thank our witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee today, and I mean that. It's a lot of work. Sit here, hear us all talk. Thank you. Appreciate you. Without 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 this hearing is adjourned.