"Here we are again, debating another partisan bill that fearmongers about immigrants, instead of working together to fix the immigration system," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal during the debate of the bill. "I probably shouldn't be too surprised. Scapegoating immigrants and attempting to weaponize the crime of domestic violence is appearing to be a time-honored tradition for Republicans."
Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler described the piece of Republican legislation as an attempt to "scapegoat and fearmonger about immigrants."
"The redundancies in this bill," he said, "all but assure that no additional dangerous individuals would face immigration consequences if it were to become law."
WASHINGTON, D.C. (WCIV) — In a vote drawing some Democrat lawmakers, Rep. Nancy Mace's bill aimed at protecting women and girls by ensuring undocumented migrants convicted of sex offenses or domestic violence are deported or deemed inadmissible to the country passed in the U.S. House Wednesday night.
Mace (R, S.C.-01), following a passing vote of 266 to 158 of the "Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act," claimed it as a day members of the House took a stand to protect women across the nation.
"We are fed up with headlines about women losing their lives or becoming victims of assailants who trespassed into our country illegally under the Biden-Harris border crisis,"Mace said."This legislation sends a strong message: if you are an illegal who has committed acts of violence against women, you will not find sanctuary here."
Fifty-one House Democrats voted for the bill that would deport migrants in the United States unlawfully convicted of a sexual offense or conspiracy to commit such a crime. Among the Democrats who voted for the bill are Reps. Mary Peltola, Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez, Jared Moskowitz and Hillary Scholten.
Opponents of the bill, the 158 Democrats who voted against it, deemed it as demonizing toward immigrants.
"Here we are again, debating another partisan bill that fearmongers about immigrants, instead of working together to fix the immigration system," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal during the debate of the bill. "I probably shouldn't be too surprised. Scapegoating immigrants and attempting to weaponize the crime of domestic violence is appearing to be a time-honored tradition for Republicans."
Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler described the piece of Republican legislation as an attempt to "scapegoat and fearmonger about immigrants."
"The redundancies in this bill," he said, "all but assure that no additional dangerous individuals would face immigration consequences if it were to become law."
The National Institution of Justice– a research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice– funded a study examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety that found the rate at which undocumented immigrants are arrested for committing violent and drug crimes is less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens.
Still, to those opposing the bill, Mace claimed they "voted against deporting rapists, pedophiles and murderers of women and kids" in a statement to News 4.
Mace continued: "Passing on a bipartisan basis, they have no excuse other than sexism."
Supporters of the legislation, including Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, claimed Democrats were committing hypocrisy when discussing the "war on women" regarding abortion, but seemed they "couldn't care less about allowing into our country a flood of sexual offenders, domestic violence offenders, and child abusers."
"The Democrats say this is duplicative of existing law,” McClintock continued. “Well if that’s true, why do they oppose it?"
The bill now heads to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where its future remains uncertain.
