Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas condemning President Biden’s latest plan to offer amnesty to potentially millions of illegal aliens in the United States. Earlier this month, Senator Hawley called for an investigation into the Biden Administration’s move to dismiss asylum cases and removal proceedings against more than 350,000 migrants.
“Amnesty for illegal aliens is absolutely unacceptable. It is a lure that will drive millions more illegal immigrants to flood across our southern border. It is a slap in the face to U.S. taxpayers. And it is totally unfair to immigrants who entered the U.S. legally,” wrote Senator Hawley.
He continued, “In the months to come, with Congress and the presidency in better hands, we will investigate these lawless plans for amnesty, your ongoing abuse of parole authority, and your dereliction of duty. In the meantime, you must immediately cease all plans to implement amnesty-by-parole. The American people deserve to see how your mass amnesty campaign is making this country less safe.”
Read the full letter here or below.
June 18, 2024
The Hon. Alejandro Mayorkas
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
2707 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE
Washington, D.C. 20528
Dear Secretary Mayorkas:
Amnesty for illegal aliens is absolutely unacceptable. It is a lure that will drive millions more illegal immigrants to flood across our southern border. It is a slap in the face to U.S. taxpayers. And it is totally unfair to immigrants who entered the U.S. legally. But apparently, you and President Biden now plan to do just that. Recent reports suggest that you are developing new plans to offer legal status to over a million illegal immigrants through a “parole in place” program. You must immediately end this latest iteration of your years-long pro-amnesty agenda.
You have made a habit of abusing the parole authority granted by the Immigration and Nationality Act. Immigration parole is narrow authority available in individualized circumstances. But in your hands, the immigration parole power has transformed into an end run around the entire U.S. immigration system, nullifying the framework that Congress—the American people’s democratically elected representatives—actually agreed upon.
By law, parole may be granted for two reasons, and two reasons alone: “urgent humanitarian reasons” and “significant public benefit.” 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A). Moreover, parole judgments must be made on a “case-by-case” basis. Id. You have baldly defied all of this. For years now, you have made blanket—not individualized—grants of parole to residents of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Ecuador. And you have likewise failed to abide by the explicit statutory limitations: leaked documents reveal that Jose Ibarra, accused of murdering 22-year-old Laken Riley, was paroled into the country on the basis of “lack of detention capacity.” That is not a permissible basis for parole. Nor, of course, is a brazen across-the-board amnesty, no matter how much you cloak this in the language of “parole-in-place.”
In your hands, parole is just one thing: a get-across-the-border-free card. And you have been handing out those cards to virtually anyone who asks. In light of your abdication of responsibility to enforce the law, President Biden’s recent promises to secure the border should be seen as what they are—empty and meaningless. There will be no securing the border while a parole-based amnesty is on the horizon, and while your Department is dropping immigration cases left and right, which is another one of your strategies to advance an amnesty agenda. Indeed, this latest proposed amnesty is transparently an attempt to curry favor with far-left activist groups, who opposed even President Biden’s toothless rhetoric about border security. In the end, the far left always gets what it wants from this administration—amnesty and a functionally open border.
In the months to come, with Congress and the presidency in better hands, we will investigate these lawless plans for amnesty, your ongoing abuse of parole authority, and your dereliction of duty. In the meantime, you must immediately cease all plans to implement amnesty-by-parole, and must immediately provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with all materials relevant to your Department’s expansion of parole authority. The American people deserve to see how your mass amnesty campaign is making this country less safe.
Sincerely,
Josh Hawley
United States Senator