Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has accused the Department of Homeland Security of obstructing Republicans’ efforts to conduct oversight of the department’s immigration policies.
Smith said on Thursday that DHS has provided inadequate information to the committee after it voted along strict party lines to subpoena the department for immigration data on November 2.
Republicans want Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reveal “unique identifiers” of people recorded as undocumented immigrants that have committed crimes, but have not been detained or placed in removal proceedings by the agency.
But Smith said that data provided to the committee in the wake of the subpoena won’t permit it to “cross-check the information to see if they have gone on to commit more crimes.”
“Instead of providing this information, all DHS gave was a list numbered 1 through 220,995. Proving the administration can count is not what we asked for,” he said.
The House Judiciary Committee subcommittee on immigration policy and enforcement voted to subpoena the Department of Homeland Security for the information after the panel said that the department refused to provide Smith with data he had requested in August.
Democrats voted to oppose the subpoena, saying that not all efforts to obtain the information had been exhausted, and that the FBI had voiced an opposition to releasing the data.
