Political Quotes

“Madam President, earlier this week, I did something I haven't done in a number of years, which is to attend a session of the U.S. Supreme Court, their oral arguments. Of course, as you know, during the COVID pandemic, even the Supreme Court had to change the way it operated, but now the Court is back in the Supreme Court Building, meeting together, and listening to oral arguments and deciding some of the most important cases that are confounding the country and our legal system. But the case that I listened to oral arguments in hit very close to home because the style of the case was United States v. Texas. It centers on a memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, which he released last fall. In it, he provided specific confirmation--indeed, actually direction--to our Border Patrol agents that they would no longer have any hard and fast rules when it comes to removing illegal entry into the United States, particularly by those who commit serious crimes. So rather than a mandatory rule, Secretary Mayorkas said: Well, you have to weigh these various factors to see whether somebody who is guilty of a serious crime should be removed from the United States. Under this memorandum, officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement were discouraged from arresting or removing illegal immigrants unless they posed a threat to national security, public safety, or border security.…”