Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) accused Republicans of trying to turn immigrants into the “boogeyman” during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration, only for fellow Texas Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) to bite back, offering a very different explanation of what America’s immigration system is meant for. “The purpose of our immigration system is for the benefit of American citizens, not foreigners or anybody else,” Gill declared. The two remarks came during the same hearing as lawmakers battled over illegal immigration, crime, deportations, and President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The exchange occurred during a January 22nd, 2025, hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement titled “Restoring Immigration Enforcement in America.” The hearing came just two days after Trump returned to office and began signing executive orders reversing Biden-era immigration policies. Crockett and Gill, both Texans and members of the subcommittee, approached the issue from completely opposite directions.
Crockett used her questioning time to conduct what she called a game of “rhetoric versus reality” with David Bier of the Cato Institute. She asked Bier whether the claim that immigrants commit more crimes than American citizens was “rhetoric or reality,” to which Bier answered, “It is rhetoric.” Crockett also asked about claims that immigrants contribute nothing to the federal government and that immigrants enter the United States only through the southern border, with Bier again describing those claims as rhetoric.
The official congressional transcript shows Crockett then turned directly to Republican arguments about crime and immigration. “We have talked, again, about crime, and there’s been this overemphasis on it,” Crockett said. “Honestly, I can tell you that I don’t want anyone to be killed, whether it’s here or anywhere else. There is nothing about me as the child of a preacher that makes me say that I want people to die.”
Crockett then took aim at her Republican colleagues. “So, I feel as if my colleagues from across the aisle have decided that they are going to make immigrants the boogie man. It’s insanity to me,” she said. Crockett added that Republicans “show compassion for victims, which they should,” but claimed they had “no compassion for people that are contributing to making us great in this country.” She questioned Bier about the perpetrators of the Buffalo supermarket shooting, the Charleston church massacre, and the El Paso Walmart shooting.
Watch the full House Judiciary Committee hearing here:
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When Gill received his time later in the hearing, the freshman Republican began with a dramatically different assessment of the immigration debate. “Nothing excites me more than the thought of President Trump initiating the largest deportation operation in American history,” Gill said. He then laid out the principle that he argued should govern the entire system: “I’d like to remind the Committee that the purpose of our immigration system is for the benefit of American citizens, not foreigners or anybody else.”
Gill went on to accuse Democrats of facilitating mass illegal immigration during the Biden administration and argued that regular Americans were paying the price. “Open borders grow the welfare State. They depress American wages, strain our education and healthcare system, price our working class out of owning a home, and flood our communities with violence and drugs,” Gill said.
Gill then shifted to the political consequences of immigration, arguing that noncitizens affect congressional apportionment because House seats are distributed according to population rather than citizenship. He claimed that excluding noncitizens from apportionment would leave California with an estimated three fewer congressional seats while Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia would each gain one. “Right now, in a political environment where Republicans have a two-seat majority in the House of Representatives, the presence of millions of illegal aliens in America could quite literally change the balance of power in our country,” Gill said.
He finished by arguing that Democrats ultimately want illegal immigrants placed on a path toward amnesty, quoting then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer discussing citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. He accused Democrats of “weaponizing mass illegal immigration to their own political benefit” before yielding his time.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.