House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan recently subpoenaed the Department of Health and Human Services to provide the case files for numerous illegal immigrants who previously entered the country as children before later being charged with violent crimes such as murder.
Jordan has consistently demanded these files, slamming the HHS response as “woefully inadequate.” The committee chair noted that HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra cited privacy concerns as a reason not to release the files and questioned the Committee’s need to view them.
Jordan denounced the HHS’ attempts to limit Congress’s efforts to obtain the files lawfully to support legislative action. “HHS’s attempt to unilaterally limit or in any way dictate how a Congressional committee lawfully uses materials to inform potential legislative reforms constitutes unacceptable interference with the workings of a coordinate branch of government and cannot be considered a good faith accommodation,” Jordan said.
Furthermore, Jordan claimed the committee had attempted to view the documents on camera, a prior offer from the department, and allowed redactions from the HHS as necessary. However, the representative noted that the documents were heavily redacted, leaving out critical information.
“Across multiple case files, HHS redacted information about whether specific UACs [unaccompanied alien children] had ‘identifying scars, marks, or tattoos’ — information that can be indicative of gang affiliation,” Jordan said. “Worse, HHS went so far as to redact information explicitly requested by the Committee, including information shared with HHS by other agencies and immigration case history information.”
Jordan further stated that the redactions to the document made them useless in the committee’s efforts to perform its duties. “By unilaterally redacting the case files, HHS rendered the requested materials provided for in camera review all but useless, frustrating and impeding the Committee’s constitutional oversight obligations,” he said.
Jim Jordan has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s purported role in the ongoing border crisis. The American Tribune reported last year on a report released by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan exposing the Department of Homeland Security for hardly deporting any of the migrants who cross the border illegally into the United States.
The report stated that “DHS released at least 2,148,738 illegal aliens into the United States” and “Only 5,993 illegal aliens encountered at the southwest border and placed in removal proceedings before an immigration judge were actually removed from the United States during this time.” The report also notes that “An additional 205,473 aliens were released into the country through illegal categorical parole programs.”
The report added, “These new data reinforce widespread concern about the state of the border. More than two and a half years into President Biden’s term, his Administration’s border crisis continues unabated. Publicly available information shows that encounters of illegal aliens on the southwest border surpassed 100,000 for the 31st straight month and total southwest border illegal alien encounters exceeded 2.2 million in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2023. In August 2023, encounters of illegal aliens at the southwest border skyrocketed to 232,972, and the unreleased encounter numbers for September 2023 will reportedly shatter previous records, exceeding 260,000 encounters in a single month. Meanwhile, more than 1.7 million known “gotaways” have evaded Border Patrol and escaped into the interior since January 20, 2021, with untold numbers of unknown “gotaways” avoiding detection during that period.”
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