Pete Sessions: “It deals with whether local law enforcement can actually participate in any meaningful way in the enforcement of Federal…”

“It deals with whether local law enforcement can actually participate in any meaningful way in the enforcement of Federal immigration laws. I will tell you what the facts are, with the help from my fine staff chief counsel, Cindy Hayden. We wrote a law review article for Stanford University Law School that dealt with this issue, and it is a very important issue. It is one well-understood by the legal professionals who have been behind the scenes crafting this legislation. The ninth circuit has held that visa overstays, which make up 40, maybe 45 percent, and in the future, if this bill becomes law, maybe more than 50 percent of the people illegally in the country, would be visa overstays. Those persons, if involved in some traffic accident, like many of the terrorists were before 9/11--they were stopped for traffic violations by local police officers, but because that is not a normal criminal violation, as is the case for people who have come across the border, they are not detainable under the ninth circuit ruling by local police officers.”