{"id":9340,"date":"2015-07-16T14:31:16","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T18:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=9340"},"modified":"2018-12-28T14:11:59","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T19:11:59","slug":"jeh-johnson-changes-his-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2015\/07\/16\/jeh-johnson-changes-his-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeh Johnson Changes His Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jeh_johnson_powerpoint\"<\/a>On Tuesday, during Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson\u2019s testimony at a House Judiciary Oversight Hearing<\/a>, Congressmen Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) pointed out the lack of factual basis for a claim Jeh Johnson has often made in the past in favor of amnesty. In speeches<\/a> in the past<\/a>, when there is no one to call him out for his failures of logic, Secretary Johnson has asserted that amnesty would benefit homeland security, because illegal aliens would \u201ccome out of the shadows\u201d and become accountable to the government. He would say this though even though it is unreasonable to think that the illegal aliens who identifiably pose security threats would identify themselves to the government when they know they can\u2019t pass a background check.<\/p>\n

Congressmen Gowdy asked Secretary Johnson to account for these statements. He asked Secretary Johnson if he recognized his own words: \u201cI want people who are living in this country undocumented to come forward, to get on the books and subject themselves to a background check so I can know who they are\u2026 from a Homeland Security perspective, I want people to come forward.\u201d Then Congressman Gowdy asked Johnson if he thought it was realistic to think someone like the alleged killer of Kate Steinle, \u00a0Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez<\/a>, who Gowdy called \u201ca career criminal,\u201d would have come forward, knowing he wouldn\u2019t be able to pass even the most lenient of background checks.<\/p>\n

In response, Jeh Johnson said, he never actually meant to imply that amnesty would encourage illegal aliens who pose security risks to come forward themselves\u2014despite the fact that any reasonable person would absolutely have interpreted his often repeated line in that way. What he really meant, he claimed at the hearing with a straight face, was that he was talking about \u201cpeople who we hope will report crime,\u201d not, apparently, the criminals themselves.<\/p>\n

Amazing how Secretary Johnson was able to so casually jettison his often expressed reason why amnesty was necessary \u201cfrom a homeland security perspective.\u201d As someone who has listened to many of his variations on this line since he became Homeland Security Secretary, I can say, it\u2019s simply not a believable interpretation that he meant to convey such a meaning with his comments.<\/p>\n

In addition, his new reason for arguing that amnesty has homeland security benefits is in fact as wrong as the one he disavowed. The idea that the immigration laws must be disregarded in order to encourage immigrant communities to report crime has been used to justify \u201csanctuary\u201d cities as well. But amnesty advocates lack<\/a> evidence backing it up\u2026<\/p>\n

See next week\u2019s Legislative Update for a full summary of the hearing\u2026<\/i>