'They Want Chaos In Order To Win An Election': Dan Goldman Lights Into GOP Over Border Security

6 months ago

At a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Dand Goldman (D-NY) questioned Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas about the bipartisan border bill.

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Transcript

00:00Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes Mr. Goldman from the state of

00:04New York for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Mayorkas, thank you

00:08for being here once again to endure the completely uncalled-for, unwarranted

00:14personal attacks from my Republican colleagues. I want to get into some of

00:20what they have been saying because it's truly shocking that we are where we are.

00:25On the one hand, my colleague from Florida says that all Democrats want to

00:31do is throw money at the problem. Mr. Pfluger just said this is a policy issue,

00:37it's not a money issue. Okay. Is the Senate bipartisan bill that you worked

00:46on, along with the second most conservative Republican center in the

00:51Senate, an Independent and a Democrat, that was endorsed by Senate Republican

00:55leadership a policy bill or an appropriations bill? It is both,

01:02Congressman, it is both an appropriation bill and an immigration reform bill and

01:08fixing what everyone agrees is a broken system. It would provide us with new

01:14legal authorities that are much needed and would really advance the security of

01:18the border. And one of those critical revisions is in the asylum process. I

01:25know this is not under your purview, but do you have any sense of how many asylum

01:31applicants ultimately are granted asylum in this country? Congressman, it of course

01:40depends on the demographics, but as a general rule, I believe it is

01:48approximately 20-25 percent ultimately receive asylum, but I would want to

01:54verify that statistic and I probably shouldn't share it given my

01:58certainty. And it takes, understood, and it there are different numbers, but it takes at

02:02least five years and perhaps as many as ten years for a case to be completely

02:08adjudicated. Is that right? It takes many years until the case is finally

02:12adjudicated. So let's just say, hypothetically, that we had an asylum

02:16processing system that could process any applications within 90 days, six months.

02:26Am I correct that that means that 75 to 80 percent of the people who

02:32apply for asylum would not get asylum and would be returned to their own

02:37country? That would enable us to remove people far more quickly, you are correct,

02:43and that would make a sea change of a difference in our ability to enforce the

02:50southern border of the United States. And is it your view that if that were the

02:56case, that there would not be an incentive for anyone who knows that he

03:01or she may not qualify for asylum to come to this country knowing that that

03:09person would be able to make an application to get a work authorization

03:12and stay here for at least five years to work? Is that correct? That is. And that, of

03:18course, creates a tremendous incentive for people to come across the border. The

03:24problem is not our credible fear standard. The problem is not the policy

03:29of asylum. The problem is that we don't have the resources to process asylum

03:35applications as expeditiously as is necessary. So no one over here is talking

03:42about throwing money at the problem. We're talking about solving the problem.

03:46And in the Senate, they tried to solve the problem. They tried not just with

03:51appropriations, but with a policy bill. Unfortunately, the Republicans have put

03:58politics over our border security. They want chaos in order to win an election

04:08rather than to solve the problems. You don't have to take my word for it.

04:12Let's quote Donald Trump, who said that he sabotaged the bipartisan deal to

04:18secure the border because, quote, it made it much better for the opposing side,

04:23unquote. And that he had stated that he, quote, killed, unquote, the deal. Senator

04:28Lankford himself said that a top Republican told me that if I try to move

04:33a bill that solves the border crisis during this election year, he will do

04:39whatever he can to destroy me. He said, I do not want you to solve this during the

04:45presidential election. There was a policy bill. There was a policy change that

04:51would have significantly addressed the problems at the border. And instead, you

04:56all on the other side of the aisle sabotaged it where you baselessly

05:00impeached the secretary who's trying to solve our problems at the southern

05:05border because you want to win it. You want to win in November. You don't want

05:10to solve the problem.

'They Want Chaos In Order To Win An Election': Dan Goldman Lights Into GOP Over Border Security

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