WASHINGTON -The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio, held another hearing in their futile quest to link immigration to high unemployment rates. The following is a statement by Marissa Graciosa, director of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement:
“It’s a shame that a committee that could do so much to fix our dysfunctional immigration system chooses to waste time holding hearings that try to pit native workers against immigrants. It’s irresponsible to push a link that exhaustive research has disproved time and again.
“But the hearings aren’t surprising given Chairman Smith’s history of pursuing failed enforcement-only measures, including authoring the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility in 1996, a consistency that has earned him an A+ from NumbersUSA, a nativist group. All of Smith’s immigration hearings this year have focused on enforcement, even though deportations are higher and enforcement is harsher now than they were under President Bush, further proof that enforcement hard-liners like Smith will never be satisfied until every immigrant is pushed out of the country.
“It is clear that relief to our communities will not come from Congress. We call on President Obama to use his administrative powers to stop this vicious enforcement-only strategy. President Obama knows the immigration system is unjust. We cannot continue separating families, stymieing young people’s potential and auditing people out of their jobs upholding broken laws.”
