PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN BY ILLEGAL ALIENS ACT

PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN BY ILLEGAL ALIENS ACT

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 9 (Thursday, January 16, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 9 (Thursday, January 16, 2025)] [House] [Pages H191-H202] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN BY ILLEGAL ALIENS ACT Ms. LEE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 5, I call up the bill (H.R. 30) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed sex offenses or domestic violence are inadmissible and deportable, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Wied). Pursuant to House Resolution 5, the bill is considered read. The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 30 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ``Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act''. SEC. 2. INADMISSIBILITY AND DEPORTABILITY RELATED TO SEX OFFENSES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, STALKING, CHILD ABUSE, OR VIOLATION OF PROTECTION ORDER. (a) Inadmissibility.--Section 212(a)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)) is amended by adding at the end the following: ``(J) Sex offenses.--Any alien who has been convicted of, who admits having committed, or who admits committing acts which constitute the essential elements of a sex offense (as such term is defined in section 111(5) of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (34 U.S.C. 20911(5))), or a conspiracy to commit such an offense, is inadmissible. ``(K) Domestic violence, stalking, child abuse, or violation of protection order.--Any alien who has been convicted of, who admits having committed, or who admits committing acts which constitute the essential elements of-- ``(i) a crime of domestic violence (as such term is defined in section 237(a)(2)(E)); ``(ii) a crime of stalking; ``(iii) a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment; or ``(iv) a crime of violating the portion of a protection order (as such term is defined in section 237(a)(2)(E)) that involves protection against credible threats of violence, repeated harassment, or bodily injury to the person or persons for whom the protection order was issued, is inadmissible.''. (b) Deportability.--Section 237(a)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)) is amended-- (1) in subparagraph (E)-- (A) in the heading, by striking ``crimes against children and'' and inserting ``and crimes against children''; and (B) in clause (i), by inserting before the period at the end the following ``, and includes any crime that constitutes domestic violence, as such term is defined in section 40002(a) of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (34 U.S.C. 12291(a)), regardless of whether the jurisdiction receives grant funding under that Act''; and (2) by adding at the end the following: ``(G) Sex offenses.--Any alien who has been convicted of a sex offense (as such term is defined in section 111(5) of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (34 U.S.C. 20911(5))) or a conspiracy to commit such an offense, is deportable.''. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill shall be debatable for 1 hour, equally divided and controlled by the majority leader and the minority leader or their respective designees. The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lee) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lee). General Leave Ms. LEE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 30. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Florida? There was no objection. Ms. LEE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 30, the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act. Over the past 4 years, President Biden and border czar Vice President Kamala Harris have allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into the United States. At the same time that they facilitated the collapse of our southwest border, President Biden and Vice President Harris abandoned any semblance of interior immigration enforcement. In a September 2021 memo, the Biden-Harris administration made enforcement more difficult for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. In training materials obtained by the Judiciary Committee and published in a staff report last year, DHS failed to answer seemingly clear-cut questions such as whether an alien who served a [[Page H192]] 20-year drug-related prison sentence or an alien who discharged a firearm outside of a police station should be priorities for arrest and deportation. Until the Trump administration can change them, those are the training materials required for all of ICE's enforcement personnel nationwide. Instead of making clear that ICE officers should carry out their duties to remove criminal aliens from American streets, the Biden-Harris administration instructed ICE officers to develop a full profile of a criminal alien before deciding whether to arrest someone who is in the country illegally. In the training examples, that included determining whether an illegal alien has high blood pressure or is a caregiver. The Biden- Harris administration's immigration absurdity appears to know no bounds. In a transcribed interview with the Judiciary Committee, a former top ICE official admitted that the Biden-Harris administration's policies have made immigration enforcement more dangerous for ICE officers, more difficult to carry out, and less efficient overall. The ICE official even acknowledged that because of the border crisis, fewer ICE officers are available to track down public safety and national security threats because they are left to do border administration-related tasks. The consequences of these policies are not hypotheticals or simply numbers. They are a reality for families across the country, and they are emblematic of the Biden-Harris administration's war on women. Last September, the Judiciary Committee heard from three mothers whose daughters were brutally assaulted and murdered by illegal aliens welcomed into the country by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Tammy Nobles recounted how Joe Biden and Kamala Harris released into the country the MS-13 gang member who went on to murder and sexually assault her daughter, Kayla Hamilton. The killer later admitted to four additional murders and two additional rapes. Patty Morin told how an illegal alien raped and strangled her daughter, Rachel, and then stuffed her body into a drainpipe. The alleged murderer entered the country through border czar Kamala Harris' wide-open southwest border. Alexis Nungaray spoke about how Joe Biden and Kamala Harris released at the border the two illegal aliens who went on to viciously assault and murder her 12-year-old daughter, Jocelyn. Ms. Nungaray said she had no clothing from the waist down. Her hands and her ankles were tied, and she was thrown under the bridge in the water like she was nothing but garbage. Victim advocate April Aguirre also told the tragic story of 11-year- old Maria Gonzalez. The Biden-Harris administration released her alleged murderer into the United States. Just 7 months later, the illegal alien assaulted and killed Maria, wrapped her body in a trash bag, and stuffed her in a laundry basket that he shoved underneath his bed. These are not isolated incidents. In February 2024, an illegal alien was arrested in Alabama for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl who could not consent to the intercourse, as she was physically helpless or mentally incapacitated. In April 2024, an illegal alien was arrested in Indiana for allegedly breaking into a Michigan mobile home park and sexually assaulting two young girls. In May 2024, authorities arrested a 20-year-old illegal alien for allegedly snatching an 11-year-old girl off the street in front of her Lake Worth, Florida, home and sexually assaulting her. According to local officials, the Guatemalan national crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in early January 2024, made his way to Florida shortly thereafter, and does not have an immigration court date until 2027. Just earlier this month, ICE arrested a Dominican national who had been charged with assault to rape, kidnapping, and indecent assault. The illegal alien crossed the border in January 2023 and was placed on alternatives to detention. That is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' immigration legacy: more unvetted aliens released into American communities, more criminal aliens on American streets, and more Americans endangered by radical, reckless policies. Thankfully, the American people have voted to end this nightmare. The Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act is just one of many bills Republicans have proposed that will help close immigration loopholes, reverse the disastrous policies of the Biden- Harris administration, and implement President Trump's immigration enforcement agenda. The Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act makes crystal clear that illegal aliens who commit sex offenses are inadmissible to and removable from the United States. The bill also fixes a discrepancy in current law by creating a ground of inadmissibility for domestic violence to mirror the existing ground of removability for the same offenses. In addition, H.R. 30 expands the current ground of removability for domestic violence by cross-referencing an existing statutory definition for sex offenses. Although many aliens can already be found inadmissible to or removable from the United States for certain sex offenses and domestic violence offenses, th

Referenced legislation: HRES5, HRES5, HR30