Preventing Violence Against Women By Illegal Aliens Act
Floor Speech
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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.
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Ms. LEE of Florida. 30.
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 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, this bill expands and clarifies the conduct for which an alien can be found removable from the country.
The time is now to take seriously the danger of criminal aliens in the United States. Anything that makes it easier for adjudicators and officials to ensure a criminal alien's arrest and removal should receive overwhelming bipartisan support, particularly when it comes to sex offenses and domestic violence.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 30, the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HARRIS of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 30, the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act.
Mr. Speaker, common sense dictates that if an illegal alien is in our country and commits a sex offense or domestic violence, they should be deported immediately. Common sense dictates that if an alien is at the border and has committed these kinds of egregious crimes in their past, they should not be allowed to take one step onto American soil.
Anything short of this standard is a complete and utter failure to protect American women and girls. This bill before us today ensures just that.
As Republicans, we have been called to clean up Biden's border crisis, and that means not only deporting illegal alien sex offenders and abusers, but we must stop them from coming into our country in the first place.
It is common sense that the legislation before us today codifies this standard. The Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act shouldn't be controversial. Sadly, as we saw last week with the Laken Riley Act, many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will use any excuse to oppose commonsense border security.
I stand on behalf of my constituents in North Carolina's Eighth Congressional District to urge my colleagues to support this crucial initiative in our fight to keep our citizens safe.
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Ms. LEE of Florida. Mace).
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Ms. LEE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers.
Democrats claim this bill is unnecessary because aliens who commit sex offenses or domestic violence offenses are already inadmissible or removable. That ignores reality.
Take, for example, the fact that, under current immigration law, there is no explicit ground of inadmissibility for illegal aliens who commit domestic violence offenses, despite a ground of removability for aliens who commit such offenses, or consider that despite certain sex offenses making aliens removable from the country, there currently is not a ground of inadmissibility or removability for certain sex offenses.
Although some aliens who commit these offenses may be found inadmissible or removable for having committed a crime involving moral turpitude, that is far from certain.
Under current law, loopholes abound. For example, in 2023, the Ninth Circuit held that a conviction for menacing constituting domestic violence was not a crime involving moral turpitude even though the alien threatened his wife with a knife.
The Third Circuit held that an alien was not removable despite a conviction for involuntary devient sexual intercourse with a 15-year- old.
Similarly, courts have found that certain convictions for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, assault of a victim under 12 years old, and annoying or molesting a child are not crimes involving moral turpitude.
That is why this bill is imperative. It is to ensure that criminal aliens who endanger families and communities can be removed from the United States.
The Biden-Harris administration's war on women must come to an end, and this bill is one step toward that.
Making guests in our country inadmissible to and removable from the United States because they have committed a sex offense or domestic violence offense should be something that even open-border Democrats can agree with us on.
Mr. Speaker, the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act is a straightforward, commonsense bill that I urge my colleagues to support, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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