Trump Minions Hope To Push Little Noticed Bill To Criminalize Immigrants

The bill comes as the US ICE round up and deportation continues with 41,000 deported in 100 days.

By Felicia J. Persaud

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. June 2, 2017: Call them Donald Trump minions! Having failed miserably in the courts to place a ban on some immigrants, Trump and his anti-immigrant aides, aka, Dr. Death Steve Bannon, are turning to their next trick – scapegoating immigrants using hard line Republican lawmakers.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, (R-Va.), and Rep. Raúl Labrador, (R-Idaho), are Trump’s latest minions who are being used to push the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda into law.

While a special counsel has been convened to see if Trump broke any laws, his anti-immigrant friends, Goodlatte and Labrador, want to criminalize millions of immigrants for just minor infractions.

The “Michael Davis, Jr. and Danny Oliver in Honor of State and Local Law Enforcement Act,” named after a pair of law enforcement officers killed by an undocumented immigrant, has so much of the White House’s fingerprints on it that it also appeared in a tweeted photo of White House strategist Bannon’s policy agenda.

Here are 10 things you need to know about this dangerous bill:

1: The bill, if it ever becomes law, is so extreme, it would make immigrants – legal or undocumented – who have multiple convictions for drunk driving, deportable. It also calls for undocumented immigrants convicted of drunk driving that causes death or serious bodily injury to be detained during their removal proceedings.

2: Goodlatte and Labrador also call for the expedited removal of immigrant terrorists and bars foreign terrorists or removable immigrants who threaten national security from receiving immigration benefits, such as naturalization and discretionary relief from removal.

3: The bill also requires that no immigration benefits can be provided until all required background and security checks are completed while it would revoke the passport of Americans who engage in terrorism, such as traveling to Syria to fight with ISIS.

4: It calls for all US Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement (ICE) deportation officers and agents to carry firearms and provides them with body armor and training to handle high-risk situations, such as executing a warrant for “a dangerous criminal immigrant.”

5: It recommends the hiring of an additional 12,500 ICE officers.

6: It would allow ICE to not release criminal immigrants to sanctuary cities; makes criminal gang members deportable and enhance penalties for deported felons who return to the United States.

7: In the instance of dangerous aliens who cannot be removed from the U.S., the bill allows the DHS to detain them.  It also contains provisions that penalize countries that fail to accept return of their nationals who are ordered removed from the U.S.

8: It allows for the unilateral shutting down of enforcement efforts by granting states and localities specific congressional authorization to enact and enforce their own immigration laws as long as they are consistent with federal law.

9: The bill also wants to allow states and localities to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law and includes provisions to facilitate their assistance, a move that could see more racial profiling, more round-ups and more mass deportation.

10: Both lawmakers also call for all visa applicants globally to receive additional screening and would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS,) and the State Department, to utilize social media and other publicly available information to help determine if the visa applicant is a security threat to the U.S.

The 184-page Michael Davis, Jr. and Danny Oliver bill was marked up in the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday, May 18, 2017. And was approved by the House Judiciary Committee by a 19-13 vote. It now goes to the full House, where leadership will decide whether or when it gets a vote.

If this measure ever becomes law, it would mark the biggest constitutional violation of the basic rights of any group of people ever. It smacks of clear hatred and bigotry and cannot be allowed to move any further. Call, email or tweet your congressmember today and tell them to stop this back channel White House move to push the Trump racist, ‘scapegoating the immigrants’ agenda. After all, drunk driving is hardly as egregious as giving away state secrets or impeding an investigation, now isn’t it?

The writer is CMO at Hard Beat Communications, Inc. which owns the brands: NewsAmericasNow, CaribPRWire and InvestCaribbeanNow.