Lou Correa Asks Expert Questions About How Undocumented Workers Contribute To The US Economy

3/26/2025

During Tuesday’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) questioned witnesses about the role undocumented workers play in the U.S. economy.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do hope we have additional opportunity to delve into these

00:05issues. Mr. Raffinson, I had the opportunity to travel from Texas to California, visit

00:12most of the ports of entry and areas between ports of entry, talked to a lot of your agents.

00:21Most of the employees right now at the border, green and blue uniforms, came on board after

00:289-1-1. So you're right, we've got a massive wave of retirements coming any day now. Low

00:36morale, pay. You pay a person at San Ysidro the same that you pay somebody in New Mexico.

00:45Mandatory overtime. Do we have mandatory overtime? That's correct. So you got an agent who's

00:51got to go home and take care of the kids, a single parent. What does he say when he's

00:55popped with a 16-hour turn? Sorry, head vest. How does that help morale? That's right. Okay.

01:05Suicides absolutely. And I hope, Mr. Chairman, moving forward, let's look at these issues.

01:10That's bread and butter stuff. Recruitment. The reason you can't bring in more people

01:14is because of the security background check. It's tougher than even the FBI's background

01:20check. These are the issues we've got to look at and we've been talking about for years.

01:26Now Mr. Blair, you talked about the narcos. Yes, sir. You did. You're absolutely right.

01:33Very powerful. In New Mexico, people are scared to death to walk on those streets. Who finances

01:39those narcos? They finance themselves through their illicit commodities. The sale of drugs

01:47to our taxpayers, our constituents. Those are American dollars. They're going to Mexico

01:53to finance the narcos. Is that correct? Yes or no? Yes, sir. We are one of their markets.

01:57You're witnessing right now the biggest transfer of wealth in recent history. American consumers

02:04financing narcos that are killing people in other countries. Yes, no? Yes, as well as

02:10all the other 65 countries. Thank you very much. I'd love to talk to you a bit more,

02:14but I got a couple of minutes left. Maybe one of my colleagues here can indulge a little

02:18bit more. But Mr. Ehrlich Melnick, let's talk about that a little bit. Trump administration

02:29pulling thousands of agents to the border, pulling FBI, DEA, ATF from investigating child

02:38abuses, sex traffickers, gangs, drugs. If you want to go after these issues, wouldn't

02:44you go after the pocketbook? Wouldn't you go after and investigate where these dollars

02:48are flowing, where they're coming from? I think so, yes. So how does this shift in personnel

02:54help the situation or not? I don't think it does. I think trained law enforcement that

02:59are focusing on very serious crimes like child sexual exploitation should stay on the job

03:03doing those jobs. I mean, if you want to punch a drug cartel, you want to go after

03:10their pocketbook, correct? So when you pull somebody from ATF, DEA, FBI from that investigation,

03:19what are we doing? I don't see how that helps. Let me come back to the issue of deporting

03:27individuals that don't have a criminal record. I'm from California. We're land of the nuts

03:37and fruits, many say. We're also the fifth largest economy in the world. We're also the

03:42biggest ag state in the United States, account for 60% of the nation's venture capital. We

03:51have more inventions, Silicon Valley. We've been able to fix our human resource, our workforce

04:00issues by integrating documented and undocumented workers. Most of the workers in the fields

04:07are probably undocumented. Is that a good bet for economy, for lowering the prices of

04:12food? Yeah, certainly undocumented workers contribute significantly to the United States.

04:18Many of them are taxpayers. About half of undocumented immigrants pay taxes as well,

04:22putting billions of dollars into a lot of them pay into the social security system.

04:26We'll never see a dime off that system. And Mr. Chairman, I've got half a minute left

04:31here, but I'd love to delve with you into these issues. Nobody, nobody wants a murder

04:37or rapist in our neighborhoods because by the time they're actually ported to the police,

04:43they ravage through our ethnic communities first. And we don't want that to happen. At

04:50the same time, we recognize the fact that we have a workforce shortage in this country

04:55and that we need legal pathways to work in this country. Look forward, Mr. Churning,

05:01to addressing the real issues. And by the way, we didn't even talk about the fact that

05:06a lot of these crossings, illegal crossings, undocumented crossings at the border are also

05:12a result of COVID. That's another issue. Mr. Chairman, thank you for indulging me. And

05:18if I can, before I give you the mic, I'd like to submit for the record, I'd like to ask for

05:23unanimous consent to submit an article from Reuters dated March 22nd of this year, entitled

05:30Thousands of Agents Diverted to Trump Immigration Crackdown that describes how special agents from

05:36HSI FBI ATF have been forced to put their investigations on hold in order to do

05:42immigration enforcement. Mr. Chairman, without objection, it'll be admitted into the record.

05:47The chair now recognizes the gentleman from the

Lou Correa Asks Expert Questions About How Undocumented Workers Contribute To The US Economy

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