H.R. ___, the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act

I think we can go, right? We got enough here, I think it

Yeah, and we're gonna do it in a minute some point, people should have to do it.

Yep. Committee will come to order without objection. The chair is authorized to declare recess at any time pursuant to committee rule two, house rule eleven, clause two. Chairman may postpone further proceedings today on the question.

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

Presumably to notice I call up H R seventy six forty, the shutdown sanctuary policies act for purposes of mark up a move that the committee reported favorable to the house. The clerk will report the bill.

H R seven six.

Without objection, the bill will be considered as read, an open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes before recognizing the gentleman, the I wanna recognize our sheriffs who are uh and law enforcement personnel are here today thank you so much and from from the great state of Maryland, thank you for being here today. Uh, I know, but you're concerned about this issue. And now I wanna recognize uh the sponsor of the legislation, the gentleman from California, Mister McClintock, for an opening statement.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and uh as you've noted the sheriffs are here today uh not only in support of this bill but also in uh opposition to the uh state's announcement that it will no longer enter into two eighty-seven G cooperative agreements uh with the federal government, which is what this bill is about. Uh yesterday, DHS Secretary Noem testified that in its first year, the Trump administration has deported more than a half a million illegal aliens with criminal records. And in the same year, we've seen record drops in crime across our country, including the lowest homicide rate in one hundred and twenty-five years. It turns out that when you remove a half million criminals from our streets, crime goes down. Who would have thought it? But not if the Democrats had had their way. As the chairman said yesterday, one third of the American population lives in so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, controlled by the Democrats, which forbid law enforcement from cooperating with federal authorities. These policies specifically protect illegal aliens who have criminal records, who are taken into custody by local law enforcement, from being turned over to federal authorities for deportation. Instead, the Democrats release them back into our communities. It should come as no surprise that when the President put the proposition to them that the first responsibility of the government should be to protect American citizens and not illegal aliens the Democrats just glared back at him. The Angel families who visited us yesterday were heartbreaking silent testimony to the human toll the Democrats' open border policies have taken on American families. In my congressional district in rural California, Every county sheriff wants to cooperate with federal authorities to remove illegal aliens from their communities. In fact, last year, the Tulare County Sheriff, who's in the next district over from mine, testified to our subcommittee that half of the crimes that his department deals with are being committed by illegal aliens. But state law forbids local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE in any way. Meanwhile, the federal government sends millions of dollars for federal law enforcement purposes to the state of California that refuses to enforce federal law. H. R. seventy-six forty is a game changer. It preempts sanctuary laws that forbid law enforcement officers from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. It allows local jurisdictions to enter into agreements directly with the federal government to enforce immigration law. It protects law enforcement officers who cooperate from ICE from being sued or fined for upholding the law. It allows victims of criminal illegals released by sanctuary jurisdictions to sue them for damages caused by these releases, and it takes the federal law enforcement funds away from sanctuary jurisdictions and gives these funds instead to those jurisdictions who are actually enforcing federal law. The chairman's pointed out that eleven states have declared themselves uh separate uh from federal law. Ironically, That's the same number of states in the old Confederacy. They both revived the - the discredited doctrine of nullification that we thought had died with the Confederacy, the notion that a state can simply ignore or nullify a federal law that it doesn't like. That notion is fatal to a federal republic like ours. It is time to bury that doctrine once and for all. To the sheriffs and deputies and police officers who've been forced by sanctuary laws, to endanger their citizens by releasing dangerous criminals back into their communities, this bill is for you. To the angel families who have lost loved ones because sanctuary jurisdictions deliberately set loose the monsters that then killed or assaulted or raped, or robbed, or maimed, or injured your loved ones, this bill is for you. To Americans across the country who found yourselves at the mercy of criminal gangs imported by the Democrats' open border policies, this bill is for you. I hope Americans will pay attention to the debate that's about to unfold. If you watch, it will become crystal clear that the Democrats are actively fighting to return criminals into our communities, rather than to deport them as the law requires and as common sense commands. This specifically applies to illegal aliens who not only have no right to be here, but to a specific class of illegal aliens, those who have been arrested or convicted or committed of other crimes, and are already in the custody of law enforcement. Should they be released back into our streets? Or should they be deported back to their own countries and never be allowed to menace ours again? That is the question before us. With that, Mr. Sh- uh, Chairman, I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Uh, the ranking members now recognize for an opening statement.

And thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman, and uh, welcome to uh our sheriffs and other law enforcement who've joined us here today. Um. The gentleman from California, uh, rushed to give President Trump credit for dramatic decreases in violent crime that have been taking place over the last several years long before he ever got to office. Beginning in twenty twenty two, under President Biden, the country experienced a major reduction in homicide and violent crime. Um, that trend continued in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four. By twenty twenty four, nationwide murders had dropped by twenty six percent since the peak in twenty twenty, with twenty twenty four having the largest one-year drop in murders ever recorded in American history. On the day that Trump was inaugurated, crime had fallen to sixty year lows. So it's true that the downward trend has continued despite the fact that the Trump administration as everybody in this committee knows, um, cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to state and local law enforcement and victims' organizations um as soon as they got into office. That's the w- that was the first thing that we were fighting about in this committee, when Doge and Elon Musk cut hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that had already been slated for our communities and for our state governments. But look, let's get to the question of the bill before us today. Now, we often say in our committee that to believe in the Constitution, is to respect it and defend it, even if it gets in the way of your momentary political passions, or your party conferences' policy agenda. So who will stand up for the tenth amendment, the right of the people in our state and local governments not to be conscripted and coerced into service and commandeered by the federal government to implement federal policies? chosen at a different level of government. You might love what ICE has been doing in Minneapolis. You might hate it. You might love the idea of sanctuary cities or you might hate it. But regardless, this bill goes way beyond sanctuary cities. This bill is a full-blown assault on the tenth amendment of the constitution. It's an attempt to force every state and local government in America to turn every sheriff police officer and other public employee, not just for the question of detainers in sanctuary, which is what our friends keep talking about, but for every other aspect of immigration law into an agent of the federal government and of this administration's uh basically incompetent and dangerous immigration operations. It's not enough for our colleagues, the DHS now has more than eighty thousand police officers of its own, more than the number of officers in New York, Chicago, LA, Houston, Washington DC, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Dallas combined, or that it is a larger annual budget than a hundred and fifty nations on earth, they now also wanna force every local state and police officer in America essentially to be deputized federal law uh law enforcement agents with respect to immigration, to participate in their operations, and to follow their policy orders. Now, fortunately, we don't have to argue this from the beginning because there's a Supreme Court decision right on point from nineteen ninety seven, Prince versus United States, which are, I'm sure our friends in law enforcement know well, where Justice Scalia decided for the court that the federal government may not compel state and local governments and state and local officials to enforce and implement federal laws. The decision struck down the provision of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act that required local law enforcement like sheriffs and police chiefs to cooperate with the ATF and the FBI to conduct violent criminal, fugitive, and illegal alien background checks. on all handgun purchasers in America. The purpose of the uh legislation was of course to prevent the violence and the bloodshed of innocent Americans caused by hundreds of thousands or millions of unqualified applicants obtaining a firearm. So there was a very clear public safety rationale. But the Supreme Court held that despite the fact that it actually would improve public safety and reduce violence, congressional commandeering of state and local officials, state and local governments, and state and local taxpayer resources violates the Tenth Amendment principles of federalism and dual sovereignty, the separate political sovereignty of the states and local governments. The Constitution simply does not grant Congress the power to force state executives to administer federal programs even for a paramount or excellent public safety purpose, like saving lives of the people as the Brady background check, indisputably did, and it's the Supreme Court accepted for the sake of arguments, but they said it violated the Constitution. It was sheriffs J. Prince of Montana and Richard Mack of Arizona who challenged the federal requirement, arguing that it unconstitutionally compelled them as local law enforcement officials to implement federal laws. The court found that coercing state officials and local officials to enforce federal laws violates the sovereignty and the integrity of state and local governments under the Tenth Amendment blurring the critical lines of political accountability in the American federalist system and conscripting state and local taxpayers to subsidize federal priorities with their limited local tax dollars and revenue so the bill before us today would do the exact same thing. Um, it pro- it would pro- prohibit states from having any laws or policies that set any limits on how much time and resources state and local officers would spend on federal immigration law enforcement what could be a greater assault on state and local government than saying that these local officials can be conscripted and then supervised by the federal government, which is going to immunize them now for any lawsuits that might uh ensue, uh to do the bidding of the federal government. So uh they also throw in uh th- uh another uh cardinal unconstitutional feature a Godfather offer, what the Supreme Court has called an " unconstitutional condition" here in effort to condition a community or a state's receipt of federal funding, on the surrender of a tenth amendment power. In another decision, National Federation of Independent Business versus Sebelius, the court noted that the tenth amendment's prohibition holds true whether Congress directly commands a state to regulate or indirectly coerces a state to adopt a federal regulatory system as its own. This bill would defund state and local police departments simply because they dare to require that all of their employees' time be used to be working on state and local laws, rather than federal laws. So, uh, my my friends, again, let's not confuse the policy question from the constitutional question. I would hope that everybody here on the committee who believes in the tenth amendment as well as the second amendment implicated, uh, in the Prince case would stand up for these constitutional principles and I yield back to you, Mister Chairman.

Gentleman yields back without objection. All other opening statements will be included in the record. The chair now recognizes the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Clerk will report the amendment.

Amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Without objection, the amendment in the nature of a substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered as base text for the purposes of amendment. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California to explain the amendment.

Thank you, uh, Mr. Chairman, fir- first in response to the ranking member who wants to complete this bill with previous laws that the Supreme Court have held unconstitutional is simply it's not the case. This bill does not command law enforcement officers to do anything or take part in any federal activities, such as conducting background checks as in Prince versus United States. It does not compel them to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program, such as taking title of nuclear waste as in New York versus United States. And it does not dictate what a state legislature may and may not do, such as prohibiting state authorization of sporting gambling, as was uh clear in Murphy versus a National Collegiate Athletic Association. This bill does not issue an order directly to state and local jurisdictions. Instead, the bill simply says that if you restrict or prohibit the federal government from doing its job to enforce federal immigration law, you cannot receive related federal grant funding. There's no compulsion, no command, no commandeering. In fact, i- it is sanctuary states and cities that want to commandeer federal law by undermining the federal government's immigration enforcement every step of the way. This bill's careful structure is permissible under Supreme Court precedent, and I urge my colleagues to reject the this uh a false argument. And now to the amendment in the nature of a substitute, it simply makes a small technical change to the uh short title, and clarifies that sanctuary city victims or their families may pursue a civil action against jurisdictions for harm that occurred before the enactment of this act. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition?

General Lee, I'll show you.

gentlelady from Washington is recognized.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, it's been one month since we saw DHS officials kill two people in cold blood in Minnesota. We've seen countless US citizens detained and beaten for exercising their First Amendment rights. We've seen ICE agents break down doors of US citizens without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment. And we just found out ICE agents admitted to killing another US citizen in San Antonio last year. But instead of addressing these egregious abuses or making sure that every federal officer acts in accordance with the fourth amendment, we're taking up this bill to force every single state and local law enforcement agency to act as immigration agents. And let's be clear, that is what we're doing by withholding these federal funds if you don't like the policies that state legislatures implement. And let's be clear, this bill is an even more radical version of the bill the majority moved nine years ago. passed their big bad betrayal bill, giving DHS a hundred and seventy five billion dollars to conduct immigration enforcement. DHS has plenty of money to hire all the new immigration enforcement agents they want, but Republicans now wanna force state and local authorities to join them in their lawless actions. So let's talk about what this bill does, because this is not merely about allowing cooperation. This bill would coerce state and local law enforcement to help them round up immigrants, by threatening to cut off law enforcement funds if they do not comply. Even though multiple courts have held that this is illegal, and numerous research studies and law enforcement officials have confirmed that keeping the long-standing distinction between federal immigration and local law enforcement helps keep communities safer. Moreover, detainers raise serious concerns as they are not orders from judges, and they often don't have sufficient probable cause. They are simply requests for local law enforcement agencies to hold individuals in custody for up to forty-eight hours. And this is not necessarily for people who have a final order of removal, as Republicans on the other side stated during the Christy Nome hearing yesterday. In fact, that's often not the case at all. Detainers have been issued for US citizens, including one US citizen who was detained for one thousand two hundred and seventy-three days. Ultimately, adopting welcoming policies and refusing to comply with detainers protects local law enforcement from being held liable for unlawful arrests and detention. Immigration enforcement is the job of the federal government, not states, not cities, not localities. There are many reasons that law enforcement themselves choose not to enforce immigration law. In twenty nineteen, my home state of Washington passed the Keep Washington Working Act. with bipartisan support. It is a common sense law to ensure that local police remain focused on public safety rather than enforcing federal immigration law. We know that when local police act as immigration agents, immigrant communities and their families are much less likely to come forward to report a crime when they are a witness or even a victim. It destroys the trust police the trust that police r- rely on to preserve public safety and communities. And courts have ruled multiple times that states have the right to enact laws like Keep Washington Working Act. Our law does allow information sharing with the federal government when necessary for an ongoing criminal investigation or pursuant to a court order, or a judicial warrant. That is how we as a state decided to handle immigration enforcement, because we wanted to ensure that our limited resources went to protecting our citizens not rounding up students, fathers, mothers, kids and law-abiding community members. And I fully support my state's effort to ensure that everyone in our state follows our law. Now, we're not alone. Many states like California, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, and Colorado have made similar choices. And I would like to point out that no law enforcement organizations support this legislation. That is because organizations like the Major Cities Chiefs Association has repeatedly reaffirmed that across the country, If law enforcement officers are viewed by members of the immigrant community as colluding or working with immigration law enforcement officers, this would result in increased crime against immigrant, this is a quote, result in increased crime against immigrants in the broader community, create a class of silent victims, and eliminate the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving crimes or preventing future future terroristic attacks. Now, we already have a problem with how people are seeing

Uh, Uh, gentlemen, gentlemen, it yields back, it yields back, the gentleman from Texas to recognize. the gentleman from Texas to recognize.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to emphasize that all this bill does is to make sure that local jurisdictions cannot shield the truly bad hombres from deportation, who need to be deported. They have no business in our country. Zero. I'm an old sheriff. I'm with you all. This right here is what is what I mean by bad hombres, right? Here we have a few that ICE picked up. In and around my district. Jose, from Mexico, arrested Harris County. Practiced dentistry without a license. Sexually assaulted one of his patients, this guy right here. Juan, from Mexico, arrested in my county, Fort Penn County, indecency with a child. There he is. Jose, he's from Ecuador, arrested in Katy, Texas. Assault and larceny. Juan Garcia, Mexico, arrested in Harris County. Assault on a family member by strangulation. Would you like to have him in your family? Look at this guy. Carlos, from Honduras, arrested in Harris County. Sexual assault of a child. We know the Republican Party, we wanna protect the American people. That's what Donald Trump wants to do. Protect the American people from these bad hombres. They wanna let them in. It's quite clear. We know who wants to let these guys in. Thang Lea from Vietnam, arrested in Katy. A lot of forgery. You sure know what I'm talking about dealing with all the forgery we have. Anyone that does not support this bill thinks these ki- types of people, these individuals, should be allowed to remain in our country and continue to prey on the American people. It is stupidity at its core Donald Trump now has to clean up the mess. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. The gentlelady from Georgia is recognized.

Uh, Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I I'm not sure if we're ready to have an amendment at the desk. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm So. I'm sorry.

Hmm. Who seeks recognition?

Who seeks recognition?

Gentleman from Tennessee is recognized.

Gentleman from Tennessee is recognized.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yesterday we had a committee meeting. We had Christine Ohm sitting right down there. Behind her were all these people who had, family members who had been killed by illegal i- immigrants, I guess. And I expressed my sorrow for what they went through. I don't think anybody else on this dais did that. They might have, but I did, because I I thought they were here and we ought to express our sorrow, and show that they're here and we recognize them. And then I said, and I don't know exactly, cuz I haven't gone back to look at it, I said that they were just as likely or more likely to have their family members attacked or killed by a person who was born in America and an American citizen, because the facts show that immigrants, illegal immigrants commit less crime than people born in America. That's a justice report report from twenty t- twenty four, and a newspaper report that I had for my city and my state. They commit less crime. That was all. And then the Department of Homeland Security has a front page, a story about me suggesting I did something terrible for these people, because Kristi Noem interpreted it that way. I didn't talk about her killing her dog, which was awful an indication of her behavior. I didn't talk about the fact that She hasn't had investigations from the people who killed Mr. Preti or Miss Good. No investig- she says, " Oh, the FBI's doing it." You know. She should have done it. Law enforcement should have their own people do it. They should have an internal affairs department. But that was ridiculous.

Hmm.

Then I got back to my office yesterday afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and I had a Baptist minister from Memphis, one of the m- most respected Baptist ministers in Memphis in my office, letting me know that two Afghans in Memphis who have done nothing wrong and are members of his church and are Christians, have been picked up by ICE. One man was picked up. He'd done nothing wrong. He'd been in the country for many years. He'd been an interpreter for our troops in Afghanistan. And they took him to the airport and had him call his wife and bring their children to the airport with her to be with him. And they did that and they flew them to Billy, Texas, where they're currently being held. Four Afghan Christians. And they were taken with no criminal offenses that they'd committed. They came in this country legally. Now our president irrationally asked all Afghans to be sent out of this country, no matter what they did for our troops, after one crazy Afghan killed an RR uh reservist here. That was terrible, but there was no reason to take every Afghan who's been in this country legally and had helped us as interpreters and send them back to Afghanistan where they'd be killed. I don't know where they're gonna send them. And then another person, an individual who is a member of his church, young man picked up, sent to Louisiana, and they wanted to port him to Brazil. There are reasons why s- cities don't wanna cooperate with ICE. ICE has become and is recognized as the worst agency in this government. They have no respect for citizens. They do not act like law enforcement. Law enforcement acts with regard for people and to serve you. They wear badges, they have their names on their uniforms, they don't have masks on, and they don't just come up and break your window and pull you out. And they don't shoot you in the face or shoot you in the back ten times, when you've done nothing wrong, certainly nothing violent. But they did nothing wrong, Miss Gooder, Miss Prattie. Nothing that a law enforcement officer would kill them for, because they can only use deadly force under certain circumstances. ICE has gotten totally out of control and this committee needs to deal with it. It's the most un-American committee we probably, pol- a law enforcement type unit we've ever had. It's really not law enforcement, it's a paramilitary group. And if you'd look up the definition of paramilitary, which I did, that's what ICE is. We have a paramilitary group operating on our streets in America, taking people's rights away and treating them and killing them without any oversight. And and and absolutely it's misnomer's fault. She needs to be impeached. If she doesn't resign, she does need to be impeached because she is a discredit to this government and to her president. It was said that she didn't fire the head of the counterintelligence group that deals with Iran. He was fired by the FBI, but they said he she didn't fire him because Mister Leondowski said that would reflect poorly on her, who h- she hired him, if she fired him. Well, she reflects poorly on Donald Trump. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, imagine a convicted child rapist and self-admitted gang member released from prison because a sanctuary jurisdiction ignored a federal detainer or a trained Delaware suspect with a history of assaults and threats freed despite mandatory detention requirements. Or an aggravated felon deported four times, released three separate times by a local jail that refused to honor ICE's request. These are not hypotheticals. Those things really happened. And many of these stories have tragic endings, and that is the reality of sanctuary policies. The crazy attempt at logic that angel families would be more likely to be harmed by US citizens is flawed. Why is it flawed? Because they weren't harmed by US citizens. They were harmed by illegal aliens that had ice holes that should have been detained. That's asinine. That argument is asinine. Laken Riley, twenty-two year old nursing student, was murdered while jogging near her campus. Her killer was unlawfully present in the US. Rachel Morin, a mother of five, was brutally raped and murdered on a hiking trail in Maryland. Her killer had entered this country illegally and remained here. Jocelyn Nungary, just twelve years old, was sexually assaulted and murdered. Two Venezuelan nationals unlawfully present in the United President in the United States have been charged Laura Wilkerson, Javier Harvey Vega, Junior, Lizbeth Medina, Dakara Thompson, Nate Baker, Fletcher Harris, Skyler Provenza, Ivory Smith, Rocky Jones, and my constituent, namesake of my legislation to end the catch-and-release program, Grant Ronebeck. The list goes on and on. of victims of illegal aliens, many of whom were in custody but were released by sanctuary cities. This is a small sample of all the victims killed by criminal illegal aliens, who never, never should have been allowed in this country. The radical left has made it clear that they do not care about protecting US citizens. They're interested in in protecting illegal aliens. From October twenty twenty two through early twenty twenty five, state and local jurisdictions declined more than twenty five thousand ICE detainers. ICE data showed that sanctuary jurisdictions have released individuals charged with homicide, sexual assault, weapons offenses, and serious gang activities. In one case, a violent offender with twenty eight prior arrests was released after multiple detainers were ignored. Fifteen of those arrests occurred after the first detainer. that was ignored. In another, a previously deported criminal alien was released repeatedly, only to go on and al- and allegedly commit rape. These are not policy disagreements. These are public safety failures. These are bad policy failures. These are bad leadership. And it is just, as my friend from Texas said, the core of stupidity. Federal immigration immigration law is not optional. The Supreme Court has made clear that immigration enforcement federal responsibility. And eight USC section thirteen seventy-three prohibits state and local governments from restricting the sharing of immigration status information with federal authorities and yet sanctuary jurisdictions do exactly that. They violate federal law. Federal law also prohibits harboring or shielding removable aliens from detection. Yet sanctuary jurisdictions do exactly that. They prohibi- they harbor and shield removable aliens from detention. They're violating federal law. More than two hundred sanctuary juris jurisdictions openly, openly defy federal law. They nullify federal authority in practice while demanding federal funding in return. There is no obligation for the federal government to continue funding these sanctuary jurisdictions, and that's one of the reasons I support this bill. President Trump and his administration are enforcing the tools Congress provided. Secretary Noem, Borders, R. Holman, and ICE are restoring accountability. and delivering results. But executive action alone cannot overcome sys- systematic obstruction at the local level. That's why HR seventy six forty, i- the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act is necessary. Why would you do that anyway? This bill prohibits sanctuary laws that restrict cooperation with federal immigration authorities. It withholds key federal law enforcement grants, including cops, burn JAG funds from jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal laws. It clarifies probable cause standards for detainers and provides legal protection to off- officers who cooperate in good faith. And importantly, it creates a private right of action so that victims of crimes committed by r- uh released criminal uh aliens can seek accountability. This restores the rule of law. And, Mister Chairman, I would also urge us to bring HR seventy-two hundred, which requires E-verify before a state issues a CDL to the to this committee for mark-up and take it to the floor. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady from uh Georgia is recognized.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment to do.

Clerk will report the amendment.

Okay. Amendment to the amendment in the nature of

Not objection, the amendment will be considered as read.

Reserve point of order.

Gentleman from Arizona reserves a point of order. The gentlelady from Georgia is recognized to explain the amendment.

Thank you, Mister Chair, and once again I'd like to reiterate what the ranking member did say, and I will quote him once again. "Who will stand up for the tenth amendment, the right of the people in their state and their local governments not to be conscripted and coerced into service and command commandeered by the federal government to implement implement federal policies?" So, Mister Chairman, to undergird this truth, my amendment is very, very straightforward. It strikes areas in the bill that would render ineligible any state or local government that chooses under its will as determined by the Constitution to leave federal immigration enforcement to federal agents. Removing this provision prevents the unnecessary loss of funding

This is

for multi-jurisdictional anti-drug anti-trafficking and anti-gang task forces. It protects resources that departments rely on to hire officers, train personnel, and keep communities safe. This bill is a constitutional violation of the tenth amendment. Plain and simple, the party of states' rights that once believed states should have the power to determine their own laws, yet again seeks to override state law and coerce state and local law enforcement into carrying out federal immigration enforcement. responsibility that belongs to the federal or go federal government. Talk about overreach and bullying? This bill is an attempt to bully states into compliance by threatening to wipe out critical public safety funding unless they redirect their limited personnel and resources to several federal priorities. In my home state of Georgia, home to the busiest airport in the world, we face constant public safety threats. including sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and drug trafficking that are tackled by a number of partnerships. Our state and local law enforcement officers operate a number of dedicated task force that focus on anti-human trafficking operations, drug interdiction, anti-gang operations, and other major crimes. Burn Jag grants provide funding for these partnership and task forces and for life-saving equipment training officers and hiring and retaining officers and other personnel, all this good that this funding provides, and yet this bill threatens to end it all because certain localities choose not to force non-federal law enforcement officers to do a federal job, a choice that is theirs to make because of the Constitution. These grants also support drug treatment initiatives and crime prevention programs, For a party that's claiming to be so tough on crime, taking a step to eliminate funding from all of these programs seems counter-intuitive. I'll lay it out plainly. Reducing investments in prevention, enforcement and rehabilitation does not strengthen public safety. It makes it worse. It weakens it. Every year, ten million people in this country are subjected to domestic violence. On average, it takes about seven times for a person to leave an abusive relationship for good. Over the course of that time, law enforcement is able to help with programs and assistance that's provided and supported by Burn Jag. Domestic violence does not disappear based on the city's immigration enforcement policy. Victims of domestic violence can be anyone from anywhere. Diverting already understaffed departments away from responding to domestic violence calls or dismailing the sex trafficking networks in order to perform federal immigration functions does not protect It leaves them more vulnerable and at higher risks of violence. This country is facing a nationwide law enforcement shortage. We have long recognized the need to support you, the state, local and tribal agencies through hiring and training programs. This is why the Cops on the Beat program was enacted and funded for you. Yet this bill threatens to fo- withhold that very support from you, the states and localities that exercise their constitutional authority to set their own enforcement priorities. This bill does not encourage partnerships or collaboration. It coerces unwilling partners, participants instead. The suction of this bill is a stick, it's not a carrot, that would force states to stretch their tight buts budgets even further in the name of federal immigration enforcement or face crippling financial consequences. It will erode trust between our communities and law enforcement that we have all worked to improve, making our communities less safe and divide our communities and law enforcement even further apart. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my amendment and to keep both our communities and you our officers safe. And I yield.

Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from California, Mr. McClintock, is recognized.

Uh, thank you, uh, Mr. Chairman. Um, first first of all, let me uh

Hey, what's that? Did we r- r-

respond to the gentlelady from Washington who

Draw a time? Draw.

decry-

Draw a point of order. That gentleman from California's recognizer.

Thank you. Uh, first I'd like to uh address the argument of the gentlelady from from Washington who decries the violence that we've seen on the streets of Minneapolis as sanctuary jurisdiction uh we all decry that violence but we've not seen it in jurisdictions that cooperate with law enforcement. Texas, which cooperates with ISIS, ten times the deportation rates per capita as we see in Minnesota without the violent incidents by lawless mobs that are incited and inflamed and encouraged by these new Confederate Democrats. And as Abraham Lincoln said, there is no grievance that is a fit object for redress by mob law. If the Democrats really want to stop the violence, the answer is to cooperate with federal authorities to turn over criminal illegal aliens when they're already in custody and can be transferred without the necessity of law enforcement officers going back out into the field tracking them down when they're at large. If the Democrats really want to stop the violence, they should stop their incendiary rhetoric demonizing federal law enforcement as stormtroopers, kidnappers, and Nazis. We've already heard a little of that rhetoric today. If the Democrats really want to protect immigrant communities, they should cheer. federal law enforcement is they remove dangerous criminals from the very neighborhoods where there are high concentrations of immigrants. These crimes are disproportionately committed in immigrant communities against immigrants. Now the gentleman from Tennessee says that illegal immigrants commit less crimes in the general population. They they they love to say that. Well, my first response is tell that to all of the angel families who were here yesterday. Put aside the fact that illegal aliens shouldn't be in this country to commit these crimes in the first place, their claim is simply untrue. The Democrats loved to cite a study of Texas inmates to support this outrageous claim. But that report deceptively classifies suspects when they're initially arrested, when we don't know their legal status, and then ignores the numbers when they're ultimately identified as illegal immigrants. When the Federation for American Immigration Reform looked at the reimbursement requests, from states for the cost of locking up illegal aliens. They found that illegals are two hundred and thirty-one percent more likely to be jailed for crimes in California, four hundred forty percent more likely in New Jersey, sixty percent more likely in Texas. Last year, NYPD officials said that most of the crimes they were dealing with involved illegal, uh, aliens. The Tulare County Sheriff testified to our subcommittee last year that half the crimes he's dealing with involved illegal aliens, including the Sinaloa cartel that's insinuated itself deeply into our communities. And yet the Democrats use this utterly debunked lie to argue in favor of not deporting illegal aliens who've been arrested for committing crimes in our communities, and who have no legal right to be here, uh, and that the law requires be removed from our our country. It's astonishing to me that Democrats would use such discredited claims to argue that we should keep these criminals on our streets and preying on our people, and on our immigrant communities as well. As to the amendment before us, it makes no sense for the federal government to provide millions of dollars of federal law enforcement funds to jurisdictions that refuse to enforce federal law. This this does not eliminate the funding. It simply redirects it from jurisdictions that choose not to enforce federal law, and gives it instead to those jurisdictions that choose to enforce federal law. The Supreme Court has made it clear that incident to its spending power, Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds, and has repeatedly employed the power to further broad policy objectives by conditioning receipt of federal funds upon compliance by the recipient with the federal statutory and administrative uh directives. That's a direct quote from the Supreme Court. Even the far-left Ninth Circuit has acknowledged that Congress has the authority to condition federal funds on compliance with federal immigration law, That's precisely what this bill does. I yield back.

Yields back. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment offered by the General Lady from Georgia. As always, Mrs. McBath is a woman after my own heart, but she goes right to the heart of the issue, which is the sovereignty, the integrity of our state and local governments under the constitutional system. Now there are at least two unconstitutional features to this legislation. One is the one at issue in this commencement, which is the Godfather offer, saying that if the states and localities don't accept this dictate from on high, uh, by the federal government, then they will lose federal funding that comes from their tax dollars along with the tax dollars of other American citizens. The other provision, um, is the the somewhat, uh, sneakier one, which, uh, purports to avoid this direct conflict with the tenth amendment by establishing a right of state and local officials to participate in the administration of federal laws, which is very strange because after all, state and local employees report to state and local governments who pay their salaries, and yet this right is apparently unlimited. But in any event, we'll come to that one later. Ms. McBath says, obviously under all the Supreme Court precedents, you've gotta get rid of this godfather offer because you can't do indirectly what you could not do directly. And I would really recommend that, uh, all of, uh, our colleagues who still care about Supreme Court case law and interpretation of the Constitution, read Justice Alito's opinion in Murphy versus, uh, NCAA from two thousand eighteen. He points out that the legislative powers granted to Congress are sizable, but they're not unlimited. We are a a body of defined enumerated powers, and all powers not expressly delegated to the Congress of the United States, are reserved to the states and the people in the tenth amendment. The anti-commandeering doctrine, writes Justice Alito, simply represents the recognition of this limit on congressional authority for people who are still interested in the original constitutional design. Well, what's the purpose behind the anti-commandeering doctrine? Justice Alito spells it out very finely. First, the rule serves as one of the Constitution's structural protections of liberty. The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of the states for the benefit just of the states or state governments as abstract political entities. To the contrary, it divides authority between the federal government and the state governments for the protection of individual freedom, the liberty of the people. Second, the anti-commandeering rule promotes political accountability. Because the local and uh state officials are elected locally, and they must be responsible to the people, not responsible to Congress or federal bureaucrats who are controlling them. And third, just as Alito says, the anti-commandeering principle prevents Congress from shift- from shifting the cost of federal regulation to the states and localities.

Will the gentleman yield?

By all means.

Uh, One of the questions I've got, and I appreciate your your summary of the law, I disagree with pieces of it, but this bill is aiming to make it um to prevent states from making it illegal from cooperating.

Yes.

Right? There's no compulsion, it just says you cannot decline enforcement, you cannot decline making it illegal to enforce. And as you well know, there there are multiple examples of cross-jurisdictional assistances, whether it's drug enforcement,

Yes.

violent crime. So, it it's it's

Well, then this is why the Thank you. Uh, but let me answer it because the Br- the the Alito decision in Murphy answers precisely your point cuz that was the structure of the legislation that was the issue there where the federal law prohibited state authorization of sports gambling is the Congress said we don't want you to authorize this practice. It's like the sanctuary law. We don't want you to authorize something we disagree with. And the Supreme Court said, even though it doesn't compel an affirmative act by the state or local government, you are interfering with state and local policy when you do that. So I think it will resolve your question completely when you read uh the Alito decision here. But in any event, that that goes to the more subtle point, which we will come to in a moment. I've got something about the tenth amendment directly. Ms. McBath's amendment is about the very clear point. Okay, so in the Brady Act case, the Congress said all of the sheriffs and local police officers and local government must participate in background checks. And the Supreme Court said you can't compel the state and local governments to use their time that way directly. It would be as if we said, " Oh, okay, we'll do it indirectly. If you don't accept that system, we're gonna cut you off from federal funding." And that's exactly what this does. So I th- Yeah.