Laken Riley Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, the Biden administration brought us back from a devastating pandemic and the Trump economic crisis by investing in American workers, American manufacturing, and American infrastructure. Our policies for the working-class majority instead of the tiny rapacious billionaire class pulled our economy back from the brink.

Today, our Nation's economic strength is ``the envy of the world,'' as The Economist magazine put it, with an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent, wages rising across America, and the gross domestic product growing at a robust 3.1 percent.

Moreover, the murder rate is way down in America. Unlawful immigration at the southern border is now below where it was when Donald Trump left office 4 years ago. The roaring stock market, which is what Trump and his billionaire entourage care about, just completed its strongest 2 years in a quarter century.

Now, it is time to make sure all Americans enjoy the benefits of this astonishing economic growth. We should be coming together today to increase the minimum wage, to lift children out of poverty, and to strengthen unions, Social Security, Medicare, and the middle class. Donald Trump is instead assembling a billionaire Cabinet from the top 0.00003 percent of the wealthiest Americans, drawing the top tier of his new administration from poolside cocktail hour at Mar-a-Lago and setting up the broligarchs and the plutocrats to plunder an even larger share of government contracts and public resources.

Trump campaigned on the seductive promise of bringing down the high post-COVID-19 prices for rent, groceries, consumer goods, and healthcare, but now he is preparing to give power over the economy to his team of globe-trotting, dictator-dealing CEOs and billionaires, the very people responsible for exploiting the pandemic to increase prices in the first place.

I doubt the billionaire oligarchs have any interest in bringing down the cost of living for the working middle class in America, but if they do, Democrats stand ready to work with them. After all, we are the ones who dramatically lowered prescription drug prices in Medicare, capping out-of-pocket monthly expenses at $35 a month. I had constituents who were paying $500 a month for insulin as diabetics before that, and it is capped now at $35 a month. We capped annual total out-of-pocket expenditures for prescription drugs at $2,000 a year.

It was the MAGA Republicans deep in the pocket of Big Pharma who categorically and vehemently opposed us every step of the way on lowering prescription drug prices in Medicare.

If our colleagues now have good policy proposals for continuing to lower prices as we have done, which is what they campaigned on, by all means, bring the proposals forward. Let's see them.

Democrats have repeatedly crossed the aisle to hammer out bipartisan compromise. Last year, President Biden and Senate Democrats worked with the ultraconservative Republican Senator James Lankford to arrive at a tough bipartisan border security deal, but President Trump aggressively tanked the deal, openly expressing his preference for rallying against a border crisis rather than actually developing a border solution.

Now, today, the Republicans are on the floor but not with their long- awaited, entirely missing policy solutions to the problems of inflation or immigration. Instead, their bill today is an empty and opportunistic measure. It is not, like the compromise they tanked in the last Congress, a bill for greater border security or better technology in the ports of entry, expanding legal pathways to immigration and citizenship for millions of people, or addressing huge immigrant visa backlogs. No, this bill would upend 28 years of mandatory immigration detention policy by requiring that any undocumented immigrant arrested for theft, larceny, or shoplifting be detained even if they are never convicted or even charged with a crime.

This is a radical departure from current law, which since 1996 has generally required mandatory detention only for persons who are criminally convicted or who admit to having committed certain serious crimes--that is, when criminal guilt is certain and established beyond a reasonable doubt.

Under this bill, a person who has lived in the United States for decades, say for most of her life, paid taxes, and bought a home, but who is mistakenly arrested for shoplifting would not be free to resume her life. Rather, she would be detained and deported even if the charges are dropped and even if the police admit that the arrest was mistaken.

Consider a young Dreamer or TPS recipient who is with a group of friends after school and someone in the group shoplifts, stealing a candy bar. To scare the whole group straight, everyone is arrested, whether they were involved in the shoplifting or not. However, nobody is charged, and the charges are dropped. For most of the kids, it is a humiliating afternoon and a valuable life lesson, but for one of them, a young person who has been in America lawfully for years with his or her family, the consequences would be devastating under this legislation--mandatory detention and deportation from the country just for having been arrested, even if never charged.

It seems to me passing strange, Mr. Speaker, that our friends are taking this position when they do not even believe that the criminal justice system can be trusted when a jury unanimously convicts someone who has had the best legal representation money can buy in the State of New York on 34 different felony criminal counts after an extended criminal trial with all due process protections, including cross- examination and the right to counsel being afforded.

If the criminal justice process cannot be trusted to identify a truly guilty person even when that person has been arrested, charged, indicted, prosecuted, represented at every stage, given an opportunity to cross-examine all witnesses, and to testify personally, and then is unanimously convicted by a jury of his peers beyond a reasonable doubt, how can the criminal justice process be trusted to identify a truly guilty person just with an arrest and no indictment, no prosecution, no cross-examination, no neutral adjudication by an impartial judge, no fact-finding, and no criminal conviction by a 12-person jury beyond a reasonable doubt?

Mandatory detention has always been reserved for people who are convicted of crimes and actually commit crimes. Expanding the detention requirement to include every person who has merely been accused of or arrested for, even if not charged for shoplifting, for example, collapses the distinction between actual conviction on serious events versus simply being charged with or arrested for something very minor even if the charges don't even lead anywhere.

Congress has never even appropriated sufficient resources to detain all noncitizens who do fall under the currently serious mandatory detention categories. Even President Trump, during his first term, never tried to detain all migrants theoretically subject to mandatory detention. Therefore, this extremely elastic new provision adds nothing to the equation other than more empty rhetoric and greater bureaucratic bloat.

The bill also seeks to give State governments authority and control over the Federal immigration system by trespassing on the Article II executive power in a way that eight out of nine Justices on the Supreme Court completely repudiated 2 years ago as a blatant violation of the separation of powers.

The bill seeks to give State attorneys general precisely what the Supreme Court has denied: constitutional standing to sue the Federal Government in court for perceived violations of sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act so States can block Federal immigration policies, capsizing the Supremacy Clause and expanding judicial power to encroach upon executive discretion under Article II.

In June of 2023, the Supreme Court in the United States v. Texas emphatically rejected the alleged standing of States to sue the Federal Government to alter the government's immigration arrest policies. This bill attempts a legislative bypass of this constitutional decision in U.S. v. Texas written by Justice Kavanaugh and joined by eight of nine Justices on the Court.

In rejecting the States' standing argument, the Court observed, among other things, that lawsuits alleging insufficient arrests or prosecution run against the executive branch's exclusive Article II authority to enforce immigration law, which includes the discretion to determine enforcement priorities in the face of a chronic lack of resources and shifting public safety, public welfare, and foreign policy needs and priorities.

If this bill were to become law, both provisions would have the perverse effect of undermining the Federal Government's efforts to prioritize the detention and the deportation of the truly most dangerous convicted felons. With the vastly expanded new statutory scope and new authority for States to get legal standing on steroids, the government can be sued by a State for not detaining everyone charged with or not even arrested for the pettiest of crimes like shoplifting.

This bill tries to give States standing to sue for harms as small as $100, dramatically shifting power from the executive branch to the courts and the Federal Government to the States, both in ways considered completely dubious by the Supreme Court.

Like many of the immigration-related bills the GOP is now advancing, this one seems to follow a simple strategy: Pick a crime, paste into it a template immigration law covering convicted criminals, and then require detention or deportation of certain persons merely accused of committing the crime or arrested for committing the crime. No due process is required at all. This allows us to get up and demonize immigrants without doing anything to fix the immigration system and to act tough without actually making America safer or solving any of the problems within the immigration laws.

We should be working together on comprehensive, meaningful reform. My colleague from California invites us to believe that the only crimes committed by undocumented aliens are those who entered during the Biden administration. Well, in fact, if you look at it, hundreds of thousands, 500,000 crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the first Trump administration, and over 1.1 million people who crossed during the first 4 years of his administration were eventually released from custody.

One of the people released from custody, an undocumented alien, is charged with murdering 19-year-old Adam Luker from Alabama. Why don't we have a bill named after Adam Luker? Is it because of the inconvenient fact that the undocumented alien who killed him came in under Donald Trump? I would hate to think so. However, we can find lots of cases like that.

That is not what we should be doing here in Congress. We should be seriously confronting the problems in a serious way together rather than just trying to make partisan hay out of other people's tragedies in their lives.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation does not move the ball forward on any of the problems facing America, and they are being moved under closed rules without a hearing, without any legislative scrutiny. This means that no Member--not only just Democrats, but Republicans, too, no Member--can offer any amendments to repair the gaping flaws and gaps in these slapdash political bills.

I would urge our colleagues to take a much more serious approach here. The murder of Laken Riley was an unspeakable and appalling crime, a heinous act, and no parent, no family should ever have to bear such a calamity. We must take clear steps to make sure that people who commit crimes like this are punished to the full extent of the law. I trust that my friends agree that those who commit horrific, violent crimes like these must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

This bill fails to take any meaningful action to improve our broken immigration system and to prevent crimes like this from occurring again, whether the undocumented aliens entered under a Democratic administration, as they have, or a Republican administration, as they have. We are asked to vote on a bill that fails to address any of the real issues at stake, and we are foreclosed from offering any amendments to improve this sloppy and political product.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, in fact, the Democrats got behind a bipartisan border security bill, which beefed up law enforcement at the border, which beefed up judges at the border, and that was tanked by Donald Trump and by Republicans in the House.

They are the ones, Mr. Speaker, who refuse to engage in meaningful legislative work to get the job done here. Democrats won't be lectured by our colleague that we don't stand up for the American people.

The author of this legislation actually yesterday sent out a tweet, a social media statement, characterizing the January 6 violent assault on this Chamber where 140 officers were wounded, injured, and hospitalized by a rampaging mob this way: ``On this day in history, 2021,'' said the gentleman, ``thousands of peaceful grandmothers gathered in Washington, D.C., to take a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol Building.'' I like that touch, ``albeit unauthorized.''

``Earlier that day, President Trump held a rally, where supporters walked to the Capitol to peacefully protest the certification of the 2020 election. During this time, some individuals entered the Capitol, took photos, and explored the building before leaving.''

Well, isn't that sweet. We see exactly how much faith and confidence they really have in the American criminal justice system and how much they really stand on the side of law enforcement. Yeah, it was a just a leisurely stroll by a bunch of peaceful grandmothers on January 6.

These are the people that now are inviting us to dramatically change the immigration laws without even a hearing as to what it is going to mean in any particular case.

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am moved by the words of the gentleman from New Jersey who said: Don't give us words. Words don't matter. Speeches don't cut it. Speeches don't do it.

It sounds like an absolute echo of what you hear from our colleagues whenever there is an explosion of gun violence in any of our communities. We hear thoughts and prayers, lots of words, but no action.

The fact that there is sympathy or condolences, I agree with the gentleman, is not enough. We need real public policy changes that will be effective and that will be constitutional.

That is what the discussion is about today. Will these policy changes, in fact, be effective? Will they be constitutional or not?

I agree that we should move from the situation of identifying and empathizing with people who have suffered terrible family tragedies and private tragedies to effective public policy. That is our job as legislators.

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In answer to the distinguished gentleman, he stated precisely what the law is now. He said: How can we go back to our districts and not defend the immediate deporting of people who have committed theft? That is what the law is. They want to change the law to go from someone who has actually committed theft, or been convicted of theft, to people who have been charged with it, even if the charges have been dropped, or arrested for it, even if charges were never brought in the first place.

I think that the misstatement of the meaning of this legislation speaks very deeply to what an opportunistic exercise this really is.

What the gentleman was asking for is the law today.

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close, and I thank the distinguished gentleman from California for this debate.

I must say that the legislation before us and the approach that it embodies reflect a profound disrespect for our criminal justice system and for our constitutional values.

To begin with, they want to change the mandatory detention provisions which we have had since 1996 on a bipartisan basis for the last 28 years. We have operated on the basis of criminal conviction, which is obviously congruent with the constitutional demands and values that we have in our country.

Now, without having a legislative hearing, they want to radically revise the statutes to say that it is sufficient for somebody to have been charged with or arrested for an offense like shoplifting or theft, even if the charges are dropped and even if charges are never brought after an arrest is made. It seems to me that they are backtracking from purported fidelity to our constitutional values.

Similarly, they want to essentially overthrow Justice Kavanaugh's 8-1 decision in the United States v. Texas from just a couple of years ago where the Supreme Court determined that States do not have standing to go to court to say that they don't like the way that a particular administration is allocating its resources and implementing a public policy.

Now, if they want to argue that there is a law that is unconstitutional, they can argue that, but they can't go to court and simply say that the executive branch is implementing the law in a way that a particular State doesn't like. Yet, they want to occasion that massive shift of power, as Justice Kavanaugh characterized it, so that the States would essentially be able to control Federal immigration policy.

I am still reeling from reading the author of this legislation's statements yesterday, which I think also speak to a fundamental disrespect for the rule of law, which says: Since January 6, hundreds of peaceful protesters have been hunted down, arrested, held in solitary confinement, and treated unjustly. Countless hours and taxpayer dollars have been spent pursuing innocent grandmothers and raiding President Trump's home while terrorists and millions of illegal immigrants continue to cross our Nation's borders.

That is the fundamentally demagogic and lawless approach to this whole debate that they have taken. Our body was invaded by a mob of insurrectionists who injured 140 officers, wounding them and hospitalizing them, and they cannot even acknowledge that as a fact but instead change the subject to millions of people crossing the border illegally, which over the decades has undoubtedly happened under both Democrats and Republicans. That is what we should be working on today.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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