Ted Poe: “What is taking place is under the guise of granting deferred action. Deferred action is a procedure, an administrative…”

“What is taking place is under the guise of granting deferred action. Deferred action is a procedure, an administrative procedure by the administration that is used when a person is detained who is illegally in the United States and the action to deport that individual is deferred to some unknown date. The person is released, and what occurs is that person is never deported and never has a hearing. This procedure started years ago with a few hundred people a year. But last year, in 2010, over 12,000 people had their immigration deportation hearings deferred to an unknown date, and what occurred was they were released and their action against them will never be taken. Some call this a form of amnesty, administrative amnesty. You can call it whatever you want, but those people stay in the United States. What this amendment does is prohibit the administration from using, under the guise of deferred action, this procedure to not have hearings on individuals, which allows them to end up staying in the United States. And no funds can be used to implement the verdict action except in two cases: One is under humanitarian reasons, and the second would be some significant public benefit to the United States. Otherwise, no deferred action, no get-out-of-jail-free card for people on a discriminatory basis done by the administration or any of its agencies. I urge adoption of this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.”