Tom McClintock fears terrorists could pour across the border. Here’s what he wants to do

Rep. Tom McClintock chairs the House’s immigration subcommittee — a position that makes the Elk Grove Republican one of the nation’s most powerful voices on border policy.

To some, McClintock is using that voice to protect the U.S. from an only-matter-of-time invasion of bad actors. To others, that voice is spewing political rhetoric designed to score political points with his conservative base.

In short, McClintock is powerful and polarizing. He is also anything but shy about expressing his concern: Terrorists are easily finding their way across the United State’s Southern border.

“My fear,” McClintock recently told The Bee, “.is we’re going to see at some point a coordinated terrorist attack by elements that have come in through the Southern border.”

Or, he continued, “We’re gonna see the kind of cartel gun battles that have become commonplace in Mexico begin to erupt in our cities.”

McClintock has been adamant about the need for tighter borders throughout his 14-year House career. Now, with Republicans running the House, he chairs its Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement Subcommittee that’s pushing the effort to pass a 137- page bill that stiffens penalties for undocumented immigrants, makes it more difficult for them to receive asylum, and provides stricter penalties for those who violate immigration law.

The bill passed the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee last week with no Democratic support. Even if it passes the House, it’s likely to go nowhere in the Democratic-run Senate.

McClintock held his first hearing last week in his House subcommittee, a two-hour examination of policies that deal with children who crossed the border and whose whereabouts are now often unknown to the federal government..

‘Cruel and extreme’

Democrats view the legislation and the hearing as merely more of the same partisan-driven extremism that’s kept the two parties from finding common ground for years.

The GOP’s latest proposal on immigration is “cruel and extreme,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapar, D-Washington, the immigration subcommittee’s top Democrat.

The bill, said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, would “completely gut our asylum system, take away protections for vulnerable children fleeing for their lives, destroy our economy, indefinitely detain children, and make the situation at the border even worse.” Nadler is the House Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat.

McClintock has consistently aligned with his party’s conservative wing on immigration policy.

When Congress considered a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in 2013, a plan that earned Senate approval but went nowhere in the House, McClintock made his views clear.

“A common tactic of those on the Left is to blur the distinction between legal and illegal immigration and to paint those in opposition to amnesty as ‘anti-immigrant.’ he said. “This is simply dishonest.”

A path to citizenship McClintock said, already exists for those willing to go through the current process.

‘Warn your constituents’

McClintock has visited the border in Arizona, Texas and California, and said last week he has found “On every one of my trips the border patrol has told me the same thing: Warn your constituents. Every community is now a border community and every community will be feeling the impact of this.”

Undocumented immigrants, he said, have at times been transported to communities far from the border.

“My greatest fear,” McClintock said, “is we’re heading toward one of two things.”

One is that the whereabouts of thousands of terrorists who had operated out of Afghanistan are largely unknown.

The other involves terrorists at the Southern border. Often the federal government can track undocumented immigrants “on video or on foot but they weren’t able to stop them because the border patrol has been completely overwhelmed taking names and changing diapers on the border.”

The congressman is particularly concerned about the end of Title 42, a pandemic-inspired restriction that forces migrants to leave this country if they were deemed a threat to spread a communicable disease. The Trump administration used the program to impose widespread restrictions on border crossings.

“I think when Title 42 is rescinded,” McClintock predicted, “we’re going to see the worst crisis yet unfold before our eyes on the border.”

Anticipating a surge of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. after May 11, the Biden administration plans to send 1,500 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

They are not going to engage in law enforcement, but work on data entry and other administrative duties. Current plan is for them to stay 90 days, though that could be extended.

That said, federal officials note that southwest border encounters with noncitizens have dropped recently, down 14% in March from the same month the previous year.

Recent enforcement measures “continue to hold strong even against the typical migration patterns seen as we enter the warmer months,” the federal Customs and Border Protection Agency reported last week.

Children and the border

McClintock wants to hold a series of subcommittee hearings on the impact of illegal border crossings both present and future.

“I’d like to explore the impact on our public schools packing classrooms with non English speaking students,” he said.

He wants to know more about how or whether public hospitals find they have “emergency rooms with illegal aliens demanding uncompensated care.”

He wants to look into the impact “this mass illegal migration is having on cartels being introduced into our communities…the impact of the fentanyl crisis killing an estimated 300 Americans on average every day.

“I want to look into the impact these policies are having on working Americans. The labor market is flooded with cheap, illegal labor.”

At last week’s first 2023 subcommittee hearing, however, the focus was on the Biden administration’s policies regarding the thousands of children who have illegally entered this country.

Once they are dropped off to different sponsors, McClintock said, “there’s been no follow up…this is shocking to me and I think it’s a story that needs to be told.” .

When immigration officials find a child not accompanied by a parent, they go under the custody and care of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Under federal law, that office has to provide food, housing and medical care for the children until it can release them to sponsors who will provide for their care and safety while the children await immigration proceedings.

Sponsors, who undergo background checks, are usually family members. They agree to make sure the child appears for immigration proceedings.

In the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, 2022, there were 127,447 children released to sponsors. In the first five months of this fiscal year, the total was 49,065, including 5,011 in California.

Robin Dunn Marcos, director of the office, last month defended the agency’s processes before another House committee. She said the office does not follow what happens to children once released, nor can it legally remove them out of unsafe conditions. That’s usually up to state or local child welfare agencies.

Child trafficking

At the McClintock hearing, Democrats said that while the issue of how to deal with children coming across the border is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, the hearing was taking the wrong approach by claiming the Biden administration was lax.

“This is a hearing intended to distort the record,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, who represents the El Paso area. “It’s entirely for political purposes.”

McClintock blasted the Biden policy towards the children as “don’t know, don’t care.” Other Republicans and witnesses were similarly outraged.

“Children are being trafficked in a sophisticated network that begins with being recruited in their home country, smuggled to the U.S. border, and (ending) when (the resettlement office) delivers a child to the sponsors,” said Tara Lee Rodas, a whistleblower from the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

And, she said, “some sponsors are criminals and traffickers and members of transnational criminal organizations. Some sponsors view children as commodities and assets to be used for earning income.”

Robert Carey, who directed the refugee resettlement office during part of the Obama administration, said that while “our immigration system is broken…too often, families are separated, making children more vulnerable to exploitation.”

But, he said, the refugee resettlement office “has taken meaningful steps to improve outcomes for unaccompanied children, bringing more child welfare expertise to (the office), ensuring that children get to family swiftly, and whenever possible, keeping families together.”

He said that under the Biden administration, “tens of thousands of children have been released to caring family members…many of these children are thriving.”

The government does try to follow up the placements, he said, usually with a phone call.

“The conclusion that they were ‘lost,’” Carey said, “stems in large part from their failure to respond to a follow-up phone call from an unknown phone number.”

McClintock remained unconvinced the system works properly.

“Although we are focusing today on young and vulnerable children, we should note that a large portion of so-called unaccompanied children are late teenagers, or young men claiming to be minors,” he said. “That’s a subject for another day.”

McClintock vowed to keep a relentless spotlight on such issues. And now — for better or worse, depending on one’s views — this local representative has the power and the platform to do so.