Donald Trump premiered on Monday his second term as president of the United States with an avalanche decrees aimed at sweeping the era of his predecessor, Joe Biden, and giving a sudden rudder turn to migratory, energy and diversity policy. Although Trump forced the limits of the executive authority, for many of his priorities the presidential decrees are not enough, but they need legal support. The Congress, as a Republican majority, has served in tray the first law of the new legislature that allows the president to focus on one of those priorities: deportations. The approval of the law has left the Democratic Party divided on the matter.
The Senate and the House of Representatives approved on Wednesday afternoon the Laken Riley law, whose name is a tribute to a Georgia nursing student who was killed last year by a Venezuelan immigrant who had previously been arrested and released by A minor crime. The new law, which fits perfectly in Trump policy of mass deportations, allows the detention and expulsion of undocumented immigrants who are accused of crimes, even if they have not been judged or declared guilty.
The final vote occurred on Wednesday at the House of Representatives and the law was supported by the Republican congressmen and 46 Democrats. The global result of the vote, with 263 votes in favor and 156 against, confirms the turn of the Democrats in the matter. The law was already approved by the lower house last year, but stuck in the Senate, then controlled by Joe Biden’s party. Now, the Democratic senators have contributed to unlock their processing by rapidly also in the upper house.
The new standard requires the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to stop unauthorized immigrants who are accused, detained or convicted of thefts, robberies and non -violent robberies and orders that they remain in custody until they are deported. The proposal was extended in the Senate to also include those accused of assaulting a police officer or crimes that hurt or kill someone. With the previous law, it was necessary to have been convicted of two minor crimes or for a serious one for expulsion. The text of the new norm also allows states to sue the Federal Government if they can demonstrate the damages caused by immigrants that enter the country illegally.
What the law does not include is new financing to reinforce the means of the customs immigration and control service (ICE). The Internal Security Department has calculated that the application of the new law would cost $ 26.9 billion in the first year, including an increase of 110,000 ICE detention beds. Trump wants new funds to migration to be allocated in a new law that also serves to extend the tax sales of his previous mandate, which expire at the end of this year. To deal with new expenses and less income without increasing the already runaled public deficit, it will be necessary to address cuts in other items.
Progressive criticism
Part of the Democrats have criticized the law for that lack of financing, but others have done so for principles, especially in the progressive wing of the party. “It is shameful that the first law of the new Congress puts a target on the back of millions of our neighbors and increases the militarization of our neighborhoods,” the congressman for Mistchigan Rashida Tlaib said in a statement. “It is a flagrant violation of procedural guarantees and will lead to mandatory detention and deportation of people who are simply accused of a crime, without even being convicted. It will separate families and lead to an increase in racial profiles. It will give Trump even more power to unleash mass deportation in our communities. It is a shame that my colleagues give to racist alarmism at the first opportunity to approve a law to turn immigrants into scapegoats and feed hatred in our communities, ”he added.
“I want the American people to know with their eyes wide open, what is within this bill, because we are here just two days after President Trump gave unconditional pardons to violent criminals that attacked the capital of our nation the 6 January. And these are the people who want us to believe that they are trying to, in quotes, ‘keep the criminals out of the streets’, when they are opening the gates, ”said the congressman by New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Debate in the House of Representatives. “Under tragedy, we are seeing a fundamental erosion of our civil rights in this bill. If a person is accused of a crime, if someone wants to point their finger and accuse someone of stealing in a store, it will be cornered and put in a private detention field and sent to deportation, without a day in court, without A moment to assert your rights and your presumption of innocence, ”he continued.
A good group of members of the Democratic Party, especially circumscriptions where they have been chosen with an adjusted majority, have seen how among the electorate has penetrated the hard hand message against Trump’s irregular immigration and have decided to support the law. Some have even copatrochin it as senators by Arizona, Rubén Gallego, and Pennsylvania, John Fetterman.
Trump has declared an emergency on the border with Mexico and a good part of his first decrees have been destined to combat irregular immigration. Trump has decided to cancel asylum and shelter requests, send troops to the border, reinforce physical barriers and other exceptional measures, despite the fact that the flow of immigrants has fallen in recent months to levels lower than those of the end of its first mandate. The demonization of immigrants and Xenophobic discourse contributed significantly to their choice, as in 2016.
