Loretta Lynch tackles immigration on first day of confirmation hearings

Immigration took center stage today as attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch answered questions during her first confirmation hearing. About 30 family members and friends attended the hearing, including her father, who is a retired minister, her husband, and members from her college sorority.

Lynch, 55, defended President Barack Obama’s decision to delay deportation action for millions of illegal immigrants but said citizenship was not a right under the law.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., questioned Lynch about an assertion he said current Attorney General Eric Holder made—immigrants entering the country illegally would have a right to citizenship. Citizenship is a right to be earned, Lynch responded, and for illegal immigrants, it is not part of the “panoply of civil rights” guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Lynch emphasized the goal of the current policy was to have the Department of Homeland Security remove “the most dangerous of the undocumented immigrants among us.”

“It seems to be a reasonable way to marshal limited resources to deal with the problem,” she said.

Lynch also spent time distancing herself from Holder, whom many have accused of being too submissive to presidential agendas. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, set the tone for the hearing at the beginning when he said the Justice Department is “deeply politicized. But that’s what happens when the attorney general of the United States views himself, in his own words, as the president’s ‘wingman.’”

Lynch opened the day by promising a fresh relationship with law enforcement and Congress.

“I pledge to all of you and to the American people that I will fulfill my responsibilities with integrity and independence,” she said in her prepared remarks.

She also preemptively addressed Holder’s perceived alignment with protesters of police violence, instead of with members of law enforcement. While Holder and the Justice Department denied the claims, recent high-profile cases and the ensuing protests put law enforcement in the spotlight.

“Few things have pained me more than the recent reports of tension and division between law enforcement and the communities we serve,” Lynch said, pledging to “work to strengthen the vital relationships” if confirmed.

Lynch, who currently serves as U.S. Attorney for New York’s Eastern District, is not unfamiliar with the issues surrounding the policing debate. She helped prosecute the New York City police officers who beat and sexually assaulted a Haitian immigrant, Abner Loima, in 1997. And her office in New York is leading the civil rights investigation into Eric Garner’s death last summer as police attempted to arrest him.

Lynch will be back on Capitol Hill tomorrow. She is widely expected to be confirmed without much opposition from the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.