Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, in a deeply alarming vote to indiscriminately target immigrant communities, the House passed House Resolution 29 (HR 29) also known as the Laken Riley Act. This bill comes as a result of MAGA Republicans’ repulsive and continuous efforts to exploit the tragedy of Laken Riley as justification for their criminalization of immigrant communities. The bill will allow for major, harmful changes to immigration policy, including rolling back vital due process protections, granting state attorneys general overreaching authority to target and detain immigrants indefinitely, and creating the pipeline for Trump’s mass detention and deportation agenda. It would also put the lives of DACA recipients, whose status is at the mercy of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), at further risk. Facing immediate arrest and indefinite detention if DACA were to end and a recipient has any sort of previous arrest record.
Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, Deputy Director of Federal Advocacy of United We Dream Action, said:
“This bill is shamefully exploitative and has one clear intention in mind: fulfilling the brutal and politically-motivated Trump and MAGA agenda of rounding up millions of immigrants for mass detention and deportation by any means necessary. It’s highly disappointing that some Democrats in the House fell for the obvious political scapegoating and traps MAGA Republicans laid in front of them instead of holding their ground and defending what the vast majority of Americans truly want: a humane, just and efficient immigration system.
There is no justice in the disproportionate targeting of Black and brown communities with impunity, stripping away due process, and tearing entire families apart. With just days before Trump’s inauguration and what we know will be an onslaught of more attacks against immigrants, there is no excuse for complicity in the hateful demonization of immigrant communities and violent expansion of the detention and deportation apparatus. We demand the Senate reject the Laken Riley Act.”