Protect Due Process

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, this week we learned that 75 percent of the men on that plane to El Salvador, the men who President Trump claimed were the worst of the worst, were, in fact, not hardened criminals.

Are we surprised that it was another example of optics over evidence?

Mr. Speaker, 75 percent of these men had no criminal charges in the United States. One of these men is 31-year-old Andry Hernandez Romero who was snatched off the streets and put on a plane to El Salvador to rot in a prison there.

Andry is not a gang member. He is not a terrorist. He is a threat to no one. He is a son, a brother, a makeup artist, and a hairdresser. He is a man who fled his home country to come to the United States because he feared for his life because he is gay.

We are being lied to. These kinds of cruel tactics are not necessary to keep us safe. This is about taking away due process and intimidating us into silence and submission. If this administration will do this to Andry, then they will do it to anyone. We are all at risk.

Protect due process.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source