Senators Spar Over Deportations in Senate Committee Hearing

FAIR Take | December 2024
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled, “How Mass Deportations Will Separate American Families, Harm Our Armed Forces, and Devastate Our Economy.” Arranged by Senate Democrats, the hearing was aimed at criticizing the deportation plans of the incoming Trump administration. On the other side, Senate Republicans pointed to open-borders policies over the last four years that created the need for sweeping efforts to secure our borders and bolster interior enforcement.
The Committee heard testimony from Patty Morin, an angel mom whose daughter was allegedly murdered by an illegal alien; Art Arthur, a Resident Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS); Randy Manner, a retired Army Major General; Foday Turay, an Assistant District Attorney from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office; and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a Senior Fellow from the American Immigration Council.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pointed to the low number of deportations carried out under the Biden-Harris administration. In his remarks, Sen. Graham noted that average annual removals over the Obama and Trump administrations were relatively similar, with an average of 263,870 and 233,838 respectively. However, under the Biden-Harris administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is deporting fewer aliens annually than it has in decades, with average annual deportations at 131,815 between fiscal years 2021 and 2024. According to the Senator, “[i]t is our belief that the only way you’ll get control of the border is for deportations to start early so people will not pay the money to the coyotes and others to come to our border in the first place because they see people leaving, not staying.”
.@LindseyGrahamSC slams the Biden administration’s abuse of immigration parole, which was used to set Laken Riley’s killer free into the country after he crossed our southern border. pic.twitter.com/5ZqrYgM4pL
— Federation for American Immigration Reform (@FAIRImmigration) December 10, 2024
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) suggested that deportations should start with aliens who have already been ordered removed from the United States. More than 1.4 million illegal aliens currently have final orders of removal, meaning they have completed the legal process and been ordered removed by a judge. But many illegal aliens with orders of removal have not been removed, and instead even allowed to continue working with an employment authorization card issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In his remarks, Sen. Cornyn argued that those with removal orders should be the first to go and have been allowed to remain in the country “[b]ecause of the Biden administration’s willful neglect of the law and enforcement.”
Patty Morin argued that deportations are necessary to enhance public safety and protect Americans across the country from illegal alien crime. Morin’s daughter, Rachel, a 37-year-old mother of five, was brutally raped and murdered in 2023 while on a trail run in Harford County, Maryland. Her alleged murderer, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, is a 23-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador who entered the country illegally at least four times and is a suspected gang member. Martinez-Hernandez is also suspected of multiple sexual assaults in California and the murder of a woman in El Salvador. Authorities have since identified him as a potential serial killer given his criminal activity in Central America and the United States. Morin argued that Rachel’s murder is one of many devastating examples of the impacts of mass illegal immigration and stated, “I realize that deportation and illegal immigration has become such a big issue, and rightly so, we have Americans that are dying every day.”
HEARTBREAKING: Patty Morin makes the case for deportations as she describes how an illegal alien allegedly killed her daughter.
That illegal alien entered the U.S. under the Biden admin.
No American should have to worry about being killed by an illegal alien in their community. pic.twitter.com/PAsaMm3c3d— Federation for American Immigration Reform (@FAIRImmigration) December 10, 2024
In addition to massive public safety risks, uncontrolled illegal immigration harms American workers. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) criticized the notion that illegal alien workers benefit the American economy – arguing instead that they depress wages and take jobs from American workers. In one notable exchange, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick proposed providing illegal aliens with a path to citizenship to ensure a “level and fair playing field.” In response, Sen. Hawley pointed out that Reichlin-Melnick’s solution unfairly grants mass amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and stated that, “[y]ou don’t actually care about working people because you’re absolutely hellbent on this ideological agenda of opening our border.” The Senator also argued that while some illegal aliens have been working in the United States for 15 years, working class wages have significantly dropped over that time period – directly harming American workers.
🔥@SenHawleyPress unleashes on open-borders advocates for wanting mass amnesty for illegal aliens, dumping millions of people into the labor force and driving down wages for American workers: “You don’t actually care about working people because you’re absolutely hellbent on this… pic.twitter.com/NeNor88whj
— Federation for American Immigration Reform (@FAIRImmigration) December 10, 2024
Throughout the hearing, Senate Democrats were adamant that “mass deportations” would inflict harm on American families and the economy. Shockingly, Democratic Members and witnesses maintained that illegal aliens in the United States – whether they have final orders of removal or not – should not be deported unless they have committed serious crimes. This messaging is in line with a September 2021 memorandum from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas entitled, “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law,” which stated that an alien’s legal status in the United States should not be the sole basis of an enforcement action.
Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney won’t say if the more than 1.3 million illegal aliens with final orders of removal should be deported from the U.S.
Those illegal aliens have had their day in court — failing to deport them will only incentivize more illegal immigration! pic.twitter.com/awZKPibF0J— Federation for American Immigration Reform (@FAIRImmigration) December 10, 2024
Tom Homan, President-elect Trump’s newly appointed Border Czar, has repeatedly emphasized the need for large-scale deportation efforts to enhance public safety and national security and enforce the rule of law. According to reports, the incoming administration’s deportation efforts will begin with removing aliens posing such threats. More broadly, Homan has said that if an individual is in the country illegally, they are “not off the table” for removal. Since President Trump’s election, Homan has pushed back against elected officials in sanctuary jurisdictions who have opposed the administration’s plans – arguing that the United States has “no other option…because if it doesn’t happen, we’re sending a message to the entire world: you can cross the border illegally, which is a crime, you can be released into the United States, either go to court or not show up in court and get an order of removal, and we’re not going to remove you. The whole world is going to come to this country.”
In November, Americans gave the Trump administration and 119th Congress a clear mandate to secure our borders and bolster interior enforcement. Deportations are a critical step in delivering on that promise, restoring the rule of law, and protecting American communities across the country.
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