Illegal Border Crossings Today:

House Democrats Urge ICE to Stop Deporting Illegal Alien Gang Members

Democratic flag

FAIR Take | May 2021

A group of House Democrats and open-borders organizations recently drafted letters calling on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to end the agency’s prioritization of illegal alien gang members for deportation. The letter ludicrously cites the supposed “discriminatory and abusive” impact of deporting gang members on immigrant communities.

The Biden administration reversed ICE’s prioritization for removal almost immediately upon taking power. Under the Trump administration, any illegal alien caught by ICE was prioritized for removal, in line with the agency’s ongressionally-mandated role of enforcing the immigration laws of the United States in the interior of the country. The Biden administration reversed this by retroactively issuing a 2014 Obama-era memorandum which prioritized the removal of certain illegal aliens, mainly dangerous criminals, over others.

But even that isn’t enough for mass immigration groups and Democrat lawmakers who would rather see ICE defunded and abolished than ignore or barely enforce laws on the books. Many of the groups – including CASA, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Human Rights Watch, and the National Immigration Law Center – are open supporters of a no-border approach to immigration law.

The groups’ letter critiques the current enforcement model chiefly by accusing it of racism and xenophobia. The letter reads:

The Memorandum’s prioritization of persons labelled as gang involved is problematic because law enforcement’s tactic of gang labelling is based on arbitrary factors that are highly vulnerable to discriminatory enforcement. Black, Latinx, and immigrant persons are grossly overrepresented among those labelled gang-affiliated by law enforcement.

The authors fail to consider that “Black, Latinx, and immigrant persons are grossly overrepresented” in gang-related arrests and convictions because they just might be those more likely to be in actual gangs, according to the National Gang Center (NGC). According to NGC, law enforcement agencies reported a greater percentage of Hispanic/Latino and African-American/black gang members compared with other race/ethnicities in a study of gang membership between 1996 and 2011. This data is admittedly outdated, but it is not difficult to suggest that these figures have probably not fluctuated greatly.

Alarmingly, 34 Democratic members of the House of Representatives sent their own letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, imploring him to issue new guidance that shields gang members from immigration enforcement. Led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), the radical letter reads:

ICE’s use of gang allegations to justify detention and deny people status is notoriously error-prone and prejudicial. Giving ICE the discretion to determine what qualifies as “gang activity” doubles down on an arbitrary and discriminatory framework used by law enforcement.

Not enforcing immigration laws that Congress itself passed has become a litmus test for House Democrats. Just look at how the party evolved on this issue. In 2006, the House passed the Secure Fence Act, which President George W. Bush later signed into law. Now, in 2021, some of the most vocal leaders of House Democratic Caucus – including members who sit on the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees – support shielding gang members from deportation. That in itself is an indictment of how profound the attitude shift has been on immigration within the Democratic Party, who now control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

Did your representative sign this letter? To make it easy for you to find out, below is a list of the Democratic members who signed it:

  • Barbara Lee (Calif.)
  • Eleanor Holmes Norton (Delegate - D.C.)
  • Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.)
  • Ayanna Pressley (Mass.)
  • Juan Vargas (Calif.)
  • Cori Bush (Mo.)
  • Pramila Jayapal (Wash.)
  • David Trone (Md.)
  • Grace F. Napolitano (Calif.)
  • Grace Meng (N.Y.)
  • Diana DeGette (Colo.)
  • James P. McGovern (Mass.)
  • Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.)
  • Adam Smith (Wash.)
  • Earl Blumenauer (Ore.)
  • Mark Takano (Calif.)
  • Jan Schakowsky (Ill.)
  • Ritchie Torres (N.Y.)
  • Chuy Garcia (Ill.)
  • Mark Pocan (Wis.)
  • Rashida Tlaib (Mich.)
  • Alan Lowenthal (Calif.)
  • Judy Chu (Calif.)
  • Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.)
  • Hank Johnson (Ga.)
  • Peter Welch (Vt.)
  • Nydia M. Velázquez (N.Y.)
  • Yvette D. Clarke (N.Y.)
  • Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.)
  • Jason Crow (Colo.)
  • Sylvia R. Garcia (Texas)
  • Danny K. Davis (Ill.)
  • Carolyn B. Maloney (N.Y.)