Separation of Nuclear Families Under Us Immigration Law Hearing
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SEPARATION OF NUCLEAR FAMILIES UNDER U.S. IMMIGRATION LAW HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION MARCH 14, 2013 Serial No. 113–9 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 79–881 PDF WASHINGTON : 2013 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:42 Jun 13, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 H:\WORK\IMMIG\031413\79881.000 HJUD1 PsN: 79881 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan Wisconsin JERROLD NADLER, New York HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia LAMAR SMITH, Texas MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ZOE LOFGREN, California SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas DARRELL E. ISSA, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., STEVE KING, Iowa Georgia TRENT FRANKS, Arizona PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas JUDY CHU, California JIM JORDAN, Ohio TED DEUTCH, Florida TED POE, Texas LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah KAREN BASS, California TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana TREY GOWDY, South Carolina SUZAN DelBENE, Washington MARK AMODEI, Nevada JOE GARCIA, Florida RAU´ L LABRADOR, Idaho HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina DOUG COLLINS, Georgia RON DeSANTIS, Florida KEITH ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY TREY GOWDY, South Carolina, Chairman TED POE, Texas, Vice-Chairman LAMAR SMITH, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California STEVE KING, Iowa SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas JIM JORDAN, Ohio LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois MARK AMODEI, Nevada JOE GARCIA, Florida RAU´ L LABRADOR, Idaho PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina GEORGE FISHMAN, Chief Counsel DAVID SHAHOULIAN, Minority Counsel (II) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:42 Jun 13, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 0486 H:\WORK\IMMIG\031413\79881.000 HJUD1 PsN: 79881 C O N T E N T S MARCH 14, 2013 Page OPENING STATEMENTS The Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Congress from the State of South Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration and Bor- der Security .......................................................................................................... 1 The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security .................................................................................................... 3 WITNESSES Randall Emery, President, American Families United Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 5 Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 7 Mathi Mugilan Paguth Arivalan, Lawful Permanent Resident Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 21 Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 22 Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Ph.D., President, Migration Policy Institute Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 23 Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 25 Clarissa Martinez-De-Castro, Director, Immigration and Civic Engagement, National Council of La Raza Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 29 Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 31 LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Con- gress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security ................................................................. 47 Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 114 APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD Prepared Statement of the Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Con- gress from the State of South Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security ....................................................................... 117 Prepared Statement of the United Auto Workers ................................................. 119 Prepared Statement of MinKwon Center for Community Action ........................ 121 (III) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:42 Jun 13, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 H:\WORK\IMMIG\031413\79881.000 HJUD1 PsN: 79881 VerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:42 Jun 13, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 H:\WORK\IMMIG\031413\79881.000 HJUD1 PsN: 79881 SEPARATION OF NUCLEAR FAMILIES UNDER U.S. IMMIGRATION LAW THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2013 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:50 p.m., in room 2237, Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable Trey Gowdy (Chair- man of the Subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Gowdy, Goodlatte, King, Amodei, Lab- rador, Holding, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Gutierrez, and Garcia. Staff present: (Majority) Andrea Loving, Counsel; Allison Hala- taei, Parliamentarian & General Counsel; Graham Owens, Clerk; and (Minority) Tom Jawetz, Counsel. Mr. GOWDY. The Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Secu- rity will come to order. This is a hearing on the separation of nu- clear families under U.S. immigration law. Unfortunately because of a meeting that the minority Members will be having with the President, we will stand in recess until 3:45. [Recess.] Mr. GOWDY. On behalf of all of us, thank you again for your in- dulgence. We will begin. This is the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. We will now proceed with the hearing on the separation of nuclear families under U.S. immigration law. And again, on behalf of all of us, thank you for being here. I will now recognize myself for an opening statement. Family is the fundamental unit of society. Family is where we go to multiply joy and mitigate grief and share all of the emotions in between. A brief moment of personal indulgence. My mother-in-law fell on Monday and broke her hip, and even though there are wonderful nurses and doctors at the hospital, it will be family that stays with her around the clock. It will be family that will take my daughter to school. It will be family that will do the grocery shopping for her, and clean the house, and cut the grass. We all claim to support pro-family agendas, and we analyze tax policy, and health care policy, and virtually all of the forms of pol- icy against the backdrop of whether or not it incents or disin- centivizes family. So it is appropriate that we also analyze our im- (1) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:42 Jun 13, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\031413\79881.000 HJUD1 PsN: 79881 2 migration policy, whether it is friendly to this thing we call family, the fundamental unit of our culture and society. We have heard the statistics about U.S. green card backlogs and the time it takes for individuals trying to come to the U.S. legally. In fact, under the current process, if you have applied for a green card on the basis of being a brother or sister of an adult U.S. cit- izen, the wait could be nearly 25 years. Members of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform now believe there to be a wait for spouses and unmarried minor chil- dren, but they do not necessarily share the same view about other family members. In its 1997 report, the Commission stated the nat- ural interest in the entry of nuclear family members outweighs that of more extended family members. The Commission also addressed the wait time for the spouse and unmarried minor children of lawful permanent residents, stating that no spouse or minor child should have to wait more than 1 year to be reunited with a U.S. petitioner. But the current green card wait time for the spouse and unmarried minor children of an LPR is actually around two and a half years, and there around 220,000 people waiting. So why is there a wait? When Congress created the kind of green card system in the Im- migration Act of 1965, limits were placed on the number of green cards available for certain classes of people each year. For instance, each year’s family-sponsored green card limit for spouses and chil- dren of lawful permanent residents in the U.S. is 114,200, plus any unused green cards from the category allotted for unmarried adult children of U.S. citizens. This preference category known as family-based