Nancy Pelosi: At Thanksgiving ‘We Should Remember the Cruel Impact of Our Broken Immigration System’

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s message to Americans this Thanksgiving is that the nation’s “broken immigration system” is “cruel” to illegal immigrants.

“Especially as we approach Thanksgiving, we should remember the cruel impact of our broken immigration system on millions of families,” Pelosi said during a news conference, reports CNSNews.com. “We must rededicate ourselves to advancing immigration — comprehensive immigration reform that honors families and strengthens communities.”

Pelosi added it was “just stunning” that some people do not think President Obama has the constitutional authority to grant temporary legal status to illegal immigrants who are parents of American-born children.

“Continuing to stall essential elements of immigration — the immigration accountability executive action issued by President Obama  — only perpetuates a broken immigration system that tears families apart fails to serve the national interest,” Pelosi said. “We must not continue to defer the dreams of hardworking immigrant families who give so much to our communities.”

Rep. Xavier Becerra also spoke about the Syrian refugees at the news conference.

“[W]e respect and understand the need to be accepting of refugees into our country — people who by definition as refugees must show that they fear death or persecution in order to have an opportunity to come into this country,” he said. “You hate to be driven by fear. But perhaps things that are worse than fear when it comes to how you treat people. I mentioned that over some 750,000 refugees have come in since 9/11 into this country and not a one has ever faced arrest or terrorism — or some type of terrorist activity.”

Becerra described the screening process to come into the country as a refugee as “extensive” and “long.”

“And you must go through the most thorough of background checks,” he continued. “In fact, there’s no form of person coming into the country from another land that requires more inspection and more rigorous inspection than those who wish to qualify as refugees.”

However, as Breitbart News reported Wednesday:

The director of Homeland Security had no answer when asked if the “vetting” process amounted to anything more than asking refugees to fill out an application, asking them a few questions in a verbal interview, and assuming they answer honestly. The best Director Jeh Johnson could offer were vague assurances that the “tight-knit, supportive communities” they settle into would “embrace” these refugees.

In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in October, FBI director James Comey, said, “We did discover in people who have come in as refugees from Iraq a number of people of serious concern, including two charged when we found their fingerprints on improvised explosive devices.”

“There’s no doubt that was the product of a less-than-excellent vetting that had been done on Iraqi refugees,” he added, saying that while the various systems of the federal government have improved in working together to vet refugees, “Our ability to touch data with respect to people who may come from Syria may be limited… The data we had available to us from Iraq from our folks being there… is richer than the data we have from Syria.”