Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee grilled Ur Jaddou, head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), on Wednesday, slamming her leadership and the Biden administration for waving in mass illegal immigration and running a humanitarian parole program "rife with fraud."
USCIS is a federal agency meant to oversee lawful immigration into the U.S.
"You totally blew it," Texas Rep. Troy Nehls told Jaddou.
"The American people are sick and tired, and you should all be fired. Well you will be shortly because the American people said, ‘We ain’t going to tolerate this anymore,’" he added.
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Rep. Tom McClintock, head of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, also drilled into Jaddou, saying: "If anyone wonders why real wages for working families have declined under this administration, look no further than the agency before us today."
"Our subcommittee," he continued, "has noted that in millions of cases, credible fear interviews are not even conducted before migrants who have illegally entered the country are then released into the country. How do you explain that?"
Jaddou attempted to explain by saying that USCIS, which primarily receives its funding from applicant fees, is underfunded.
McClintock shot back that "until we opened our borders those fees were more than adequate to conduct those interviews and under your administration, they’re not."
The chairman took particular issue with the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans parole program – known as CHNV – which, according to a November report by the subcommittee, was used to allow more than 530,000 migrants from those countries into the U.S.
The CHNV program was started by the Biden administration in January 2023 and allows up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the U.S. each month. It was temporarily paused by the administration in July due to fraud concerns but then reinstated just weeks later.
"They took a parole authority that required case-by-case review of individual exigent circumstances to provide temporary entry to the United States and transformed it into a fraud-ridden, mass admission of more than half a million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans up to 1,000 every day," said McClintock.
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McClintock also criticized USCIS for not properly vetting CHNV sponsors and allowing migrants to sponsor each other.
"Literally one parolee can immediately arrive in this country, receive indefinite status, and then sign up as a sponsor for the next. This is illegal chain migration on steroids all made possible by an agency willing to contort and ignore the law," he said.
Pressed further by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Jaddou admitted that the program allows migrants to sponsor other migrants. She said 86% of CHNV parole sponsors are U.S. citizens and lawful residents, leaving questions about the other 14%.
Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs dug further, questioning Jaddou on the widespread abuses of the CHNV program by migrants, citing hundreds and thousands of instances of the same Social Security number, email, zip code and responses being used on multiple sponsor applications.
"This program is rife with fraud," Biggs said, adding that "the fraud was so rampant you closed down the program, but you didn’t fix it. It’s still ongoing."
"Do you know how you reduce illegal immigration, according to the left? It’s really simple. You make illegal immigration legal," said Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt.
"Biden was upset the American people were complaining about the increase in illegal immigration numbers at the border," he said. "So, what did Biden do? He legalized illegal immigration by expanding the intended use of parole to fit his needs."
Throughout the hearing, Jaddou maintained that her agency was effectively managing its duties, including the CHNV program, which she said is "just one piece" of "an entire border management strategy."
"It cannot work alone," she said. "Neither can enforcement measures work alone if we want it to be long-lasting, and that’s why this process is important."
