The House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Bob Goodlatte, is set to take up a series of anti-immigrant bills this week that will “ramp up a Trump deportation force,” undermine public safety by militarizing federal immigration agents, and waste millions in taxpayer dollars to terrorize millions of immigrant families nationwide. Goodlatte’s deplorable bill, in particular, “would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] deportation officers to have access to not just standard-issue handguns and stun guns, but also M-4 rifles or equivalents”:
The little-noticed legislation is one of four immigration-related bills that the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider, two of them specifically focused on ICE, the third on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the fourth on human trafficking. If passed, they would give the Trump administration more resources to deport immigrants and make it easier to do so.
“As a package, the House Judiciary bills would turbocharge Trump’s mass deportation agenda,” Frank Sharry, head of pro-immigration group America’s Voice, said in an email. “It seems Goodlatte and fellow Republicans want to go down in history as the Congress that aided and abetted one of America’s darkest chapters.”
Goodlatte’s ICE authorization bill would add 10,000 officers focused on deportation, 2,500 in detention, and 60 trial attorneys. It would authorize officers to make arrests without a warrant if they had reasonable grounds to believe the person had committed a felony, and would allow ICE to arrest people for civil offenses without a warrant, even if they are not considered “likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained,” which is the case under current law.
None of these hateful bills would do anything to finally fix our nation’s outdated immigration system and give hardworking immigrant families who have contributed to their communities and have U.S. citizen children a chance to finally become a part of this country on paper. Instead, House Republicans—led by Goodlatte, who just three years ago floated the idea of legal status for undocumented immigrants and is funded by top donors like Comcast, Facebook, and Alphabet—are aiding Trump’s mass deportation agenda targeting Dreamers, moms and dads, and even one veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan.
Another bill from Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) would force local law enforcement officers to use their limited resources to become federal immigration agents, yet another attack on the Trump regime’s ongoing war on so-called sanctuary cities. This is despite the fact that many local law enforcement agencies support sanctuary city policies, because they know that more crimes get reported and communities become safer when undocumented immigrant residents trust local police. Already, some police chiefs are saying the rate of Latinos reporting sexual assault is declining out of fear of deportation:
A third immigration bill, a version of which was introduced in the last Congress but not enacted, would authorize state and local law enforcement to get more involved in detention and deportation efforts. The bill is broadly aimed at combatting so-called sanctuary city policies restricting local law enforcement cooperation with ICE, which the Trump administration has promised to eliminate.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) expressed frustration on Monday that bills were being marked up so quickly after their introduction, which he said indicated Republicans were “not serious about building consensus or crafting, debating, and passing thoughtful legislation.”
“This is about brandishing their swords and using the immigration issue as a political weapon, which is frankly pretty much what I have come to expect from Judiciary Republicans these days,” Gutierrez told HuffPost in a statement.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported on one other anti-immigrant proposal that has yet to be publicly unveiled. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Michael McCaul’s (R-TX) bill would also attack sanctuary cities and “force parents of undocumented teens to wear electronic ankle monitors so their children don’t skip deportation hearings.” Gotta love those family values. The House Judiciary Committee is set to mark up that first series of bills tomorrow, and if they do indeed make it to the House floor for a vote, Democrats must deny Trump and Republicans a single penny to carry out this dark, nativist vision.