Jayapal Calls Laken Riley Act a ‘Highway to Mass Deportation’

CAPEHART: “Congresswoman Jayapal, welcome back to ‘The Sunday Show.’ Please explain to everyone why — what’s in this bill and how damaging could it be?
Jayapal: “Well, Jonathan, it’s great to see you. Thanks for having me on. Look, I think the first thing to know is that if an undocumented immigrant commits a horrendous act of murder, like what happened to Laken Riley, that person is immediately mandatorily detained and deported. If they’re convicted of that. Now, what this bill does, as you said, is that it expands that to shoplifting and theft, and it says that there is no due process. So, let me give you an example. A shopkeeper doesn’t like the way somebody looks when they walk into the store. They accuse that person of shoplifting. That person is immediately arrested by the police and immediately turned over and mandatorily detained by within the criminal justice system, that person has not had a trial. There is no evidence that that person actually committed the crime that they’re accused of, and yet they are mandatorily detained. So the way I like to think about this is that it is essentially a highway to mass deportation, and you can have any number of people picked up and put into the criminal justice system simply for being accused, with no conviction, no admission of guilt. Right now, if you are picked up on shoplifting or theft, and you are actually convicted of that, you are mandatorily detained. If you are picked up and you admit to the crime, you are mandatorily detained. This says you can just be accused. And so it is really a massive overstretch, it is a real problem, and it is the way that Republicans are trying to expand the ways that you can put an undocumented immigrant into the criminal justice system without even a conviction.”