House Democrats' immigration bill would use tax dollars to import crime to America

Garcia claims his bill would correct racial and anti-immigrant injustices embedded in our immigration laws, but the bill's main provisions would simply protect aliens who are subject to deportation because they have committed crimes.

Implementation would bury an already overwhelmed immigration court under an avalanche of new cases; it would allow dangerous criminals to remain in the United States, and it would use tax dollars to bring deported criminals back.

For starters - and the likely headline feature - Section VI of the bill would repeal 8 USC §1325(a) and 8 USC §1326 which make illegal entry into the United States a crime and makes it a crime to reenter the United States after being deported.

While decriminalizing illegal entry should be no surprise in a Democratic immigration bill - it's been discussed in presidential debates after all - it's the other provisions in Garcia's proposal that are jaw-dropping.

The bill would repeal 8 U.S.C. §1226(c), which requires mandatory detention for aliens who are deportable for committing specified criminal offenses, and it would give them the right to bond hearings before an immigration judge.

The bill would terminate the 287(g) Program, which trains and authorizes State and local police departments that want to be more involved with immigration enforcement to provide ICE with more active assistance in apprehending deportable aliens.

I proposed less extreme changes in a bill I wrote for the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee many years ago, the Restoration of Fairness in Immigration Act of 2002.

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/482910-house-democrats-immigration-bill-would-use-tax-dollars-to-import-crime-to