Rogers: Obama's 'illegal executive order' opens immigration system up to 'fraud and exploitation'

WASHINGTON — Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers (R-AL3) on Tuesday peppered Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson with questions as the secretary defended President Obama’s recent immigration executive order while testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee.

Obama’s executive actions seek to shield from deportation roughly 5 million illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for more than five years and have children who are citizens or posses a green card.

“The reality is that, given our limited resources, these people are not priorities for removal,” Johnson told the committee. “It’s time we acknowledge that and encourage them to be held accountable. This is simple common sense.”

Rogers asked Johnson to explain how U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) plan to verify that illegal immigrants — who have had a vested interest in leaving no paper trail — have, indeed, lived in the country for the five-year timespan required to be protected from deportation.

“If they say, ‘I’ve been here seven years,’ how do you get them to prove it and how do you know the way they prove it is valid?” Rogers asked. “For example, they say, ‘I’ve been living at this address the last seven years and here’s a power bill over that period of time,’ and the power bill is in another person’s name. And they say, ‘But I rent from that person,’ and that person says, ‘Oh, yea,’ but it’s a complete fabrication. How do you prove their residency is accurate when they present themselves to you?”

Johnson conceded that it will be difficult to verify the authenticity of illegal immigrants’ residency claims, but said CIS will develop a method.

“Good question… The onus is on the applicant to come forward with something that satisfies the immigration officer — the examining officer — that they have in fact lived in this country (for the five-year period),” he replied. “I do not believe that will be as simple as, you know, ‘Take my word for it.’ There will have to be some sort of documented proof. That will be developed in the implementation process by CIS.”

Rogers said he believes there is not an accurate method to verify the length of time an illegal immigrant has lived in the United States and warned that President’s executive actions have opened the system up to increased fraud and abuse.

“This is an area that is going to be wrought with fraud,” Rogers said of the residency verification process. “All sorts of lies and exploitation are going to be driven to this point and I think it’s going to be impossible for y’all to be able to determine who, in fact, qualifies under this very broad and illegal executive order.”