House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has subpoenaed the Biden-Harris administration for the cost the federal government has spent on housing illegal immigrants at taxpayers’ expense.
In a letter Tuesday, Jordan demanded Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra answer about the Biden-Harris administration’s “enforcement of federal immigration law and its implementation of policies that prioritize illegal aliens and refugees over U.S. citizens and other legal residents.”
Since July, Jordan said the committee, which conducts oversight over the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a component entity of HHS, has sought information about ORR’s coordination with the State Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “use taxpayer dollars to pay for housing assistance for aliens in the country.”
The committee has also sought information about ORR’s relationship with Church World Service, a faith-based non-profit organization, and the organization’s Refugee Housing Solutions, “through which aliens can be connected with housing resources,” the letter says.
Jordan said the committee sent multiple requests to the ORR director for documents and communications related to the “ORR’s role in providing housing assistance and housing referrals for refugees, parolees and other aliens in the United States,” but she repeatedly missed deadlines to send that information.
The committee, after repeatedly seeking “her voluntary cooperation with our oversight and reiterating our outstanding requests,” ultimately received seven pages of documents on Oct. 4, “which included nothing of substance and cannot possibly encompass all relevant documents and communications in HHS’s possession or control,” Jordan wrote. “The failure to provide the requested materials hinders the Committee’s ability to fulfill its constitutional oversight obligations.”
The letter cites how the Supreme Court has recognized that Congress has a “broad and indispensable” power to conduct oversight, which “encompasses inquiries into the administration of existing laws, studies of proposed laws, and surveys in our social, economic or political system for the purpose of enabling Congress to remedy them.”
“Pursuant to the Rules of the House of Representatives, the Committee has jurisdiction to conduct oversight of matters concerning federal immigration law to inform potential legislative reforms,” Jordan wrote. “These potential legislative reforms could include, among other proposals, limiting funding of housing assistance for aliens and ensuring that U.S. taxpayer dollars are used to benefit the American people, many of whom are struggling to buy homes and pay rent.”
“To inform such potential reforms, the Committee must first understand the Biden-Harris Administration’s current application of federal immigration law,” Jordan added.
