Immigration and Border Issues

WASHINGTON — Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) issued the following statement in response to the Supreme Court 5-4 decision on Hernandez v. Mesa:

WASHINGTON — Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) issued the following statement marking the implementation of President Trump’s public charge rule:

WASHINGTON— Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) members called on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Chad Wolf to meet with the Caucus to discuss his role in enacting President Trump’s agenda, including the Remain in Mexico policy, deportation of asylum seekers via “safe third country” agreements, the use of “tent courts” to conduct immigration court hearings, and the building of Trump’s border wall, among other topics. This request follows a series of meeting requests between the CHC and DHS. Last Congress, CHC met with then-Secretary of DHS John Kelly in 2017 and then-Secretary of DHS Kristjen Nielsen in 2018. DHS had confirmed a meeting with the CHC on May 23, 2019 but DHS cancelled the meeting after mass turn-over occurred in Department leadership in the spring of 2019.

WASHINGTON — Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), issued the following statement in response to President Trump using transfer authority to reprogram $3.8 billion in military funding to instead fund border wall construction:

WASHINGTON—Representatives Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Joaquin Castro, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, today demanded information from the State Department on recently announced rule changes impacting non-immigrant visa applicants seeking to visit the United States. In a letter to Assistant Secretary of State Carl Risch, the lawmakers called for more information about the rationale for the rule changes, reportedly designed to curb “birth tourism,” while underscoring the potentially significant consequences of the new rules.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, today led a group of leading Democrats in calling on the State Department’s Inspector General to immediately open an investigation into the Trump Administration’s decision to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras. Joining Menendez and Castro in requesting the IG probe were House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (NY-16), Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (NY-10), Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere Chairman Albio Sires (NJ-8), and Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship Chair Zoe Lofgren (CA-16).

WASHINGTON— Congressional leaders called on Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to immediately halt implementation of the Trump Administration’s new asylum programs, Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP). These programs do not help asylum seekers but instead systematically deny them due process, leave them in life-threatening circumstances, and ultimately deny the opportunity to justly seek asylum in the United States.

WASHINGTON — Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) issued the following statement to mark one year of the Trump Administration enforcing their Remain in Mexico Program, also known as the “Migrant Protection Protocols”: