WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) delivered the following opening statement, as prepared, for the House Judiciary Committee Hearing on "The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: Victim Perspectives":

"Mr. Chairman, before I start, I would like to take a moment and express my sincerest condolences to all of our witnesses who have lost loved ones, and to all of their families.  I cannot imagine how difficult this loss has been for you, and I appreciate your being here to share their stories. May their memories be a blessing.

Unfortunately, instead of working in a bipartisan fashion to find meaningful solutions to our broken immigration system, we are sitting in yet one more partisan hearing designed to divide us and to score political points before an election.  In fact, one of our Republican colleagues said the quiet part out loud last week when he said, in this season, quote “These are messaging [hearings] that we’ve been doing.”

With only eight weeks until election day, our Republican colleagues are trying to do everything they can to blame Vice President Harris for what they now call the “Biden-Harris Border Crisis.”

They label her the “border czar” and the leader of the administration’s border policy, even though they know that is not the case.

Let’s be clear, Vice President Harris was never in charge of immigration policy for the Biden administration and was certainly not the “border czar.”  That position does not exist so, of course, she could not have been appointed to it.  My Republican colleagues know this, of course, but have never let the facts get in the way of their messaging.  

The truth is that President Biden directed Vice President Harris to address the root causes of migration from Mexico and the Northern Triangle.  In that role, she generated over $5 billion in public and private investments aimed at creating economic opportunities in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.  

And that investment has paid major dividends—between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, border patrol apprehensions of migrants from those countries dropped by nearly 50 percent.  

That’s because immigration is impacted by factors beyond one country’s policies.  People do not leave their lives and homes behind on a whim—the people crossing our border immigrate because life has become unsustainable in their home countries, because of factors like persecution, or economic, food, or political insecurity.  By investing in other countries, we help ensure that people can build a better life for themselves without having to seek security elsewhere.  

These investments have contributed to the lowest levels of unauthorized crossings in four years. But you would not know any of that from seeing my colleagues do their press hits on Newsmax or from what we have heard today.

During today’s hearing, we are going to hear from family members who have lost a loved one from fentanyl poisoning or as a result of a crime committed by someone who entered the country over the last four years.  There is a verse in the Torah that hangs in my office: tzedek tzedek tirdof—justice, justice shall you pursue.  

The families here today want justice for their loved ones.  They want to ensure that no other family has to suffer the pain of what they have gone through.  These are noble goals.  The heinous crimes these families have suffered should be universally condemned.  The perpetrators should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of our laws and then they should be removed from the country.  

But this is not a story that began four years ago.  Tragically, the same story could be told of any president. Even former President Trump’s administration released undocumented immigrants who went on to commit crimes.

Now, do I blame President Trump for those crimes? Of course not. He has his own crimes to worry about.  And, as I have said all Congress, no president has ever had the resources to detain every individual who crosses the border without authorization. Our immigration system is broken, and it will take a substantial bipartisan effort to fix it.  

We need more judges and asylum officers so migrants can have their asylum case heard in a matter of weeks not years. We need to expand lawful pathways for migration, as the Biden-Harris administration has been trying to do, so people can come to the United States after they are vetted in an orderly and safe manner. 

And we need to look at immigration in a holistic manner, to see the benefits that immigrants bring to this country, and not focus only on the negatives.  

Immigrants’ contributions have helped ensure that we came out of the pandemic stronger than any other advanced economy. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that recent immigrants will cut the deficit by $900 billion and add revenues of $1.2 trillion over the next decade. Immigrants make essential contributions to our society, our economy, and our character as a country.  And they do so despite an immigration system that has been profoundly broken for decades.

But, all Congress, my Republican colleagues have shown they do not have interest in fixing the system so that we may take advantage of the remarkable contributions that immigrants make to our country while keeping out those who would do us harm.  Instead, they would rather blame Democrats and push unworkable solutions.

Republicans spent a year saying that their dream bill, H.R. 2, is the only way to secure the border, even though they know that it cannot become law, having failed twice to pass the Senate, receiving just 32 votes earlier this Congress. 

Then they insisted that the price of helping protect Ukraine against Russian aggression was enacting harsh border enforcement legislation.  Senate Republicans even managed to find bipartisan support for a border bill in the Senate, a bill that Minority Leader McConnell called the toughest border bill in 30 years. 

But Republicans could not take yes for an answer.

Donald Trump said that he did not want to do anything that might help at the border in an election year, because he wants immigration as a campaign issue. Other Republicans said it out loud too: saying they don’t want to “do too damn much to help a Democrat.”

Republicans showed clearly what Democrats have been saying over and over again—that they don’t want to do anything that would help address our immigration system.  They clearly have given up.  

I wish that was not the case. Vice President Harris has made it clear we need a reformed immigration system with robust lawful pathways to citizenship, strong security and controls at our border, and a modern approach to a global issue that has been neglected for far too long. Democrats stand ready to work on real solutions to these problems. I only wish we had a willing partner.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and I yield back."