Acting director of the Department of Homeland Security joined Tucker Carlson late last week to discuss the Democrat-backed New Way Foward Act, a bill Wolf described as capable of "gutting the rule of law." "It's very dangerous. I would say it completely guts our immigration enforcement system that we have in place," Wolf said on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "It also ... just from a pure legality perspective, it just guts the rule of law," as reported by Fox News.
Forty-four Democrats have co-sponsored the bill, which would allow people who have committed serious felonies in other countries to move to the United States legally and would make it extremely difficult for federal immigration officials to detain immigrants. Wolf continued, "So envision a world where individuals no longer have to wait in line for visas. They can come across the border, it's no longer [criminal] to do that. They can then come into the system. We can't deport them because we can't hold people, it essentially abolishes ICE. And then on top of all of that, going back 25 years, we then have to find folks, bring them back into the country [and] re-litigate their immigration proceedings." Concluding:
So if you're looking for a way to abolish our immigration system, abolish ICE and just rewrite our immigration code completely, this would be the legislation for you.
Thankfully, Wolf said he wasn't that concerned that the legislation would become law, adding that President Trump "would never" sign such a bill. But the secretary did warn that if the legislation ever did become law, it would essentially nationalize "Sanctuary city policies."
Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and current Resident Fellow in Law and Policy for the Centers for Immigration Studies, expertly summed up the wildest aspects of the New Way Foward Act in his most recent report, these were his findings:
- H.R. 5383, the "New Way Forward Act", which has 44 cosponsors, would effectively eviscerate immigration enforcement at the border and in the interior of the United States.
- It would all but eliminate detention for immigration purposes, and impose new burdens on our already overtaxed immigration courts.
- It would place onerous restrictions on ICE officers and Border Patrol agents in making immigration arrests — including in desolate areas of the border in the middle of the night.
- It would require those officers and agents to justify every arrest of an alien without a warrant before an immigration judge, straining to the point of elimination DHS's limited immigration-enforcement resources.
- It would create a "statute of limitations" of five years for the commencement of removal proceedings based on even the most serious criminal offenses.
- It would limit the criminal grounds of removal so significantly that only the most extreme offenses would render criminal aliens removable, and would also expand the relief available to the few aliens who would still be removable on criminal grounds.
- It would make the amendments to the criminal grounds of removal and relief retroactive, so that even criminal aliens who have been removed from the United States, but who would not have been removable had that law been in effect, could apply to have their cases reopened or reconsidered. Immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals would have no discretion not to reopen or reconsider those cases.
- It would require DHS to pay to fly those criminal aliens who have been removed and who would be eligible for reopening or reconsideration thereunder back to the United States — which would result in dangerous criminal aliens being returned at taxpayer expense back to this country to commit more crimes.
- It would prevent state and local law enforcement from assisting ICE and CBP in immigration enforcement in any way, and bar the inclusion of immigration-related information into the NCIC database or its incorporated criminal history databases. This would essentially make every jurisdiction in the United States a "sanctuary jurisdiction". As a result, ICE officers would have to risk their own safety and the safety of the community as a whole to arrest dangerous criminal aliens at their homes or in public places.
- It would repeal the criminal grounds of illegal entry and reentry into the United States, encouraging fraud, enriching smugglers, traffickers, and criminal cartels, and endangering the national security and the community.
For the full Fox story, please click here.
For the full CIS report, please click here.
