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Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. It does nothing.

Why? Because individuals are already subject to deportation for assault--whether they assault a police officer, whether they assault a milkman, whether they assault your family member. People who are convicted of serious assaults of law enforcement are already deported. They already can face both State and Federal criminal allegations.

Under current law, if an individual is convicted of any crime of violence and sentenced to a year or more in prison--that is an aggravated felony--that person is deportable. Even more so, any crime of ``moral turpitude,'' where the crime is punishable by imprisonment of 1 or more years, is subject to deportation.

Additionally, any noncitizens that are convicted of any aggravated felony, including misdemeanor offenses--including misdemeanor offenses--are subject to deportation.

This bill doesn't do anything. If you are here waiting for an asylum claim or on a green card and you assault a police officer, you are subject to deportation under existing law.

So why are we considering taking this up under UC? Well, I think Senator Budd referenced it in his underlying remarks. It is part of an effort to try to make Americans believe that there is a specific dangerous threat posed to you by immigrants; that you should be afraid of immigrants; that there is a crime wave sweeping this country caused by people who are coming to this country to seek a better life.

Listen, I spent 5 months negotiating a bipartisan border deal because I believe that we need to come together in a bipartisan way to bring greater order to the southwest border. So I won't take a backseat to anybody when it comes to making the tough decisions necessary to bring some border security to this country.

But the Senator offering this motion voted against that bipartisan bill. So did almost every other of his Republican colleagues. We had an opportunity to do something about bipartisan border security, and Republicans rejected it.

Why? Because President Trump said: No. Let's keep the border chaotic. Let's keep this an open political issue. Do nothing until the election.

We had a chance to come together, in a thoughtful way, on a bipartisan border bill, and we did not.

The facts are this. Whether you choose to want to believe the facts or not, that is not my decision; it is your decision.

But immigrants commit crimes in this country at a rate lower than natural-born citizens. You may not believe that if you watch FOX News every night, but I hate to tell you, it is the truth. So if you want a safe town or a safe neighborhood, you are better off--you are statistically safer--if you have immigrants because they commit crimes of violence at a rate lower than people who are born in the United States.

I don't know why we are being asked to vote on this bill because it doesn't do anything other than feed this idea, this false narrative, that this country has something to fear from families that are coming to the United States fleeing either economic desperation or violence or terror or torture for a better life.

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