Violence Against Women By Illegal Aliens Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, here we are again, debating another partisan bill that promotes fearmongering about immigrants, instead of working together to fix the immigration system.

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.

The Trump administration reversed protections for asylum seekers who were fleeing unspeakable domestic violence in their home countries, and that is exactly what will happen again under another Trump Presidency as described in Trump's Project 2025.

Aminta Cifuentes is emblematic of the many survivors of gender-based violence who would be harmed by this legislation.

For over 10 years, Aminta Cifuentes' husband beat, raped, and tormented her. He tried to set her on fire. It resulted in her permanent hearing loss. He once hit her so hard that she gave birth prematurely, and she still has difficulty breathing and speaking.

Ms. Cifuentes tried to get protection from Guatemalan law enforcement multiple times, but the police dismissed her complaints as marital problems.

When she tried to leave her husband, he hunted her down. She finally fled to the United States where even here, her husband's threats still followed her.

This is exactly the kind of person that apparently my Republican colleagues do not think deserves protection.

Back in 2013 when the Senate passed its bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform legislation with 68 votes, it was then blocked by the Republican Speaker of the House because he knew that it would pass if it were to come to a vote.

That legislation would have legalized 10 million people, updated the legal immigration system, and added significant amounts of new enforcement.

One of the provisions that was forced in by Senate Republicans actually included a section making the crime of domestic violence a new inadmissibility ground.

We supported that provision because it also contained important exceptions to protect survivors of domestic violence. There are absolutely no such protections in this legislation.

This misguided bill would take the Violence Against Women Act definition of domestic violence and weaponize it into grounds for deportation.

Let me be clear: VAWA, or the Violence Against Women Act, is landmark legislation, and it is actually a testament to a time when Democrats and Republicans could come together and legislate on issues of fundamental importance to this Nation, despite our differences.

The initial iteration of VAWA passed the House by voice vote. It was a significant law. It reshaped how we as a country talk about gender- based violence and how we treat survivors.

Now, we have to fight tooth and nail to reauthorize it, and Republicans regularly let it languish, expired now for 3 years.

While VAWA is a great law, its definition was never meant to capture criminal conduct. In fact, it explicitly says in the definition itself that it intends to capture conduct that may or may not be criminal.

There is a reason that advocacy organizations for domestic violence survivors are coming out in droves to oppose this legislation.

They know how this expanded definition will harm survivors and create a chilling effect for reporting future crimes.

There are so many reasons why individuals in domestic violence situations are forced into the criminal legal system.

Too often, survivors are arrested alongside their abuser, and they are charged and even convicted of crimes involving violence. Using this definition makes it more likely that we harm the very people that we want to protect.

In that same vein, this bill also has no waivers or exceptions. Under current law, any crime involving moral turpitude, which would cover much of the conduct in this bill, is eligible for a waiver if the individual can meet very strict criteria.

Current law also has specific and important options for waivers for survivors when dealing with a conviction for domestic violence or stalking.

These allow the government to waive a conviction if certain criteria are met, including showing that the individual was not the primary perpetrator, and that the crime was committed in self-defense.

Unfortunately, the Republican majority is attempting to add a new inadmissibility ground, and they don't even require a conviction or include any waivers. This makes absolutely no sense.

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Ms. JAYAPAL. As it is, domestic violence survivors say that these waivers are not as strong as they could be, but to not include them at all shows a shocking lack of empathy and understanding of what survivors of domestic violence experience.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering that this is the same party supporting a man who was found liable for sexual assault and bragged about grabbing and forcibly kissing women without their consent.

Last week, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of VAWA's enactment, and now, as Trump's Project 2025 threatens to decimate key protections enshrined in VAWA, congressional Republicans are attempting to contort the law to hurt the very people it was designed to protect. What a disgrace.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this misleading bill.

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