July 23, 2019

U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Representative,

On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I urge you to vote against H.R. 2203, the ill-advised Homeland Security Improvement Act introduced by Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), which copies the 9/11 Commission to create a new independent body that would oversee the handling of illegal migrants.

H.R. 2203 duplicates oversight efforts that are already being performed by Congress, the Government Accountability Office, the Office of Inspector General, and the Office of Professional Responsibility. Congress should be promoting efficiency in its oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and streamlining existing redundancies, not increasing them.

The legislation establishes a new 12-member advisory committee to direct to the secretary of DHS on border security and immigration enforcement matters. This new committee is designed to investigate the administration with the authority to issue subpoenas, hold public hearings, and request unlimited document production at the expense of the taxpayers.

The bill also creates a new ombudsman office within DHS that would duplicate authorities that already exist and give one person without any specific qualifications the authority to provide immigration relief and other redress to illegal migrants outside the normal bounds of the law.

The bill contains a provision that requires federal, state, and local law enforcement officers to comply with a dozen new administrative requirements for every single routine traffic stop or encounter. Every interaction by an officer would have wasteful and unnecessary new obligations for recordkeeping, which will produce an unfathomable amount of paperwork as the average officer has hundreds of encounters each day.

H.R. 2203 sets a dangerous precedent, ignores the reality on the border, and in no way fixes our broken immigration system. By duplicating the language of the 9/11 Commission, the bill also equates the current crisis on the border with the terrorist attacks that originally led to the creation of DHS.

Again, I urge you to vote against this bill.

If you have any questions, please contact CCAGW Director of Government Affairs Allen Johnson at allen@cagw.org. All votes on H.R. 2203 will be among those considered for CCAGW’s 2019 Congressional Ratings.

Sincerely,

Tom Schatz
President, CCAGW

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