And while Chan was the main event, the undercard - so to speak - was Cabinet Secretary and former Immigration Minister Carlos Perdomo. He was called back for a second day to discuss his tenure as Minister. For over an hour, Business Senator Mark Lizarraga grilled him on weaknesses in the system, how they were exploited, and if he did anything to try to stop abuses within the Immigration Department.
Here is an excerpt of their back and forth:
Hon. Mark Lizarraga - Business Senator
"Do you agree that you implicitly and it can be said implicitly tolerated wrong doing under your watch."
Carlos Perdomo - Former Minister of Immigration
"I don't agree."
Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"You don't agree; would you agree that you either implicitly of explicitly nurture wrong doing under your watch?"
Carlos Perdomo
"You talked about casting aspersions, you are back to it. I don't agree."
Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Do you agree that implicitly or explicitly wrong doing grew and blossomed under your watch as minister of immigration and nationality?"
Carlos Perdomo
"I don't agree."
Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"These reports that we have in front of us as far as I'm concerned and as far as I've been told represent a very small fraction of the total amount of irregularities, wrong doings and illegalities over a certain period of time. We were told that this is just a sampling over that two year period; it does not reflect 100% of the transactions that took place in that period. You were the minister responsible in this period, you are highlighted prominently in this so I think it's fair for us to spend as much time as possible asking you to help us determine how these things happened and the minister responsible did not know except in joke."
Carlos Perdomo
"But if there was fraud and everything is fraudulent in the file, how..."
Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"I'm trying to find out what it is that you and your colleagues did to fix this system that you knew was flawed and that everybody knew was flawed except you maybe but you knew that things were happening."
Carlos Perdomo
"Except you (laugh) you talk like you are unflawed. The question is I don't know, we didn't talk about solutions."
Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Then we can understand now why what happened, happened because those people that were supposed to talk about solutions did not."
Carlos Perdomo
"That's your judgement, I hope it goes into the record but it doesn't have anything to do with me."
Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Mr. Perdomo if those who were responsible according to the constitution and according to the regulations if those that were responsible did not identify it and did not seek to correct it then one has to question whether implicitly or explicitly such actions was being condoned and until we can have answers then there are a lot of questions that remain. These reports never come out of the thin air, they are based on facts and findings and it's disappointing at least to me that it took a report like this to correct the atrocities that were being committed in a department which you once were in charge of and it's concerning to me that you claim to not have known anything about it. I have no further questions for you Mr. Perdomo."
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