Bob Goodlatte, Republican from Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said during an oversight hearing with Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson on Thursday that calls by Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama for House Republicans to consider immigration reform legislation by the August recess -- or ensure that Obama takes executive action to make comparably modest changes to immigration law-enforcement policies -- were doing more harm than good for the cause of reform, according to the Associated Press.
“When the president says that he’s going to set a time limit and then consider taking actions himself … that makes doing immigration reform harder, not easier,” said Goodlatte. The judiciary committee chairman went on to express concern over Johnson’s stated intention to modify Secure Communities, a controversial program begun in 2008 under which local cops can keep potential immigration violators in custody even after they’ve been cleared, so that immigration authorities can arrive at the station to interview the suspect. Johnson has indicated he may recommend limiting use of the program to suspects with records of serious crime.
Politico reports that Goodlatte called the program “one of DHS’s most successful programs to identify and remove dangerous aliens” and said Johnson’s comments caused him “grave concern for the future of immigration enforcement.” The secretary of DHS, for his part, sought to downplay the extent of the changes he might recommend to the president, telling lawmakers that he thought the “goal of the program is a very worthy one that needs to continue” but that it needed a “fresh start."
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