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GOP leaders say Cummings’ abusive new subpoenas violate bipartisan agreement in place

October 13, 2019 | | Print Article
(File photo from Getty)

Two Republican House members have accused House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings of violating an agreement between House Republicans and House Democrats.

The agreement pertains to a decision by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services “to cease giving consideration to requests for deferred action from illegal immigrants with ‘non-military special circumstances,’ which includes medical needs,” according to Fox News.

The USCIS policy went into effect in early August. But after congressional Democrats and their allies complained about the policy (see below), the agency reversed it.

As such, the issue has been settled, or so House Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Chip Roy argue.

Yet last week Cummings decided to keep the issue going anyway by reportedly issuing subpoenas to USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Matthey Albence.

Both have been called to testify this upcoming Thursday, much to Jordan and Roy’s annoyance.

“If you proceed with this subpoena over our objections, you will once again violate our bipartisan agreement about subpoenas, trample on long-held minority rights in the House of Representatives, and prove the partisan nature of your inquiry,” the duo reportedly wrote in a letter sent to Cummings late Friday.

“These subpoenas are an unnecessary and abusive tactic to use against an Executive Department that has already reached your desired policy outcome,” the letter continued.

Cummings, a far-left Democrat who’s been credibly accused of corruption, disagrees. In his own letter sent to the committee’s members on Thursday, he accused USCIS and ICE of failing to hand over certain documents.

“The request’s deadline was Sept. 13, six days prior to the policy reversal,” Fox News notes. “A Sept. 18 letter from Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Chairman Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., sought testimony from Albence and Cuccinelli at a Sept. 26 hearing. On Sept. 19, Cuccinelli responded by saying that the old policy was back in place, and that he would not testify because it was a ‘resolved issue.'”

But it appears that the same Democrats who spent years chasing after the since-debunked Russian collusion delusion conspiracy theory are now hellbent on milking this otherwise resolved issue for all it’s worth.

In his letter, Cummings also tried to preemptively address Jordan and Roy’s concerns.

“With respect to holding a Committee vote, our agreement states that ‘[t]here will be exceptions to this policy,’ such as when ‘the calendar does not permit the Committee to schedule a markup,'” he wrote, attempting to blame the subpoenas on there not being enough time to hold an official vote.

It’s eerily similar to the arguments being used by congressional Democrats to defend their unofficial and arguably unethical “impeachment inquiry” against President Donald Trump.

Neither Jordan nor Roy bought this excuse.

“There is ample time to convene an ‘open proceeding and a vote’ so that members have ‘an opportunity to go on the record for some of the most important work they will do,'” they wrote in their Friday letter.

They added that Cummings has “manufactured the illusion of exigency to suit your purpose by failing to act until now.”

Also leading the push to continue harassing USCIS and ICE officials over the deferred action decision is radical, race-obsessed freshman Democrat Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

“Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley has been calling for more transparency around the government’s decision to end the policy with no public announcements. She says the administration must explain,” station WBUR reported last week.

“There will not be full justice and full restoration for these families until they have received notification,” she reportedly said. “We understand what the genesis was for this because we see what happens in the light of day with this administration, one shudders to think what is happening under the cloak of night.”

The claim, according to WBUR, is that despite the rule’s reversal, some illegal aliens still “remain limbo” and have not yet been granted a temporary stay in the United States over their alleged medical conditions (illegal aliens are known for trying to game the system).

It’s unclear why the Trump administration even backed out of this policy in the first place, given as the argument could be made that illegals aren’t entitled to anything, including unearned residence in the United States.

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Vivek Saxena
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