Jeremy and Angel Seay and Sergeant Brandon Mendoza Protect Our Communities From Duis Act of 2025

Floor Speech

With this strained legislation, we are bumping into two major social problems: deadly drunk driving on our roads and a broken immigration system. Alas, we are not doing anything to solve either problem. The bill pretends to do something about both of them, but it really does little or nothing about either of them.

We lose 11,000 people a year to drunk driving crashes. More than a million people are arrested on DUI charges every year, Mr. Speaker. I lost a beloved cousin of mine in Florida who was in the prime of her life just after graduating from college when she was killed by a drunk driver while she was riding a bicycle on the roads of Florida.

I take this issue of drunk driving very seriously. I have worked on it fastidiously for a long time in my career. There is a lot we could do in Congress to improve safety on the streets, including imposing a nationwide mandatory ignition interlock device on the cars of all convicted drunk drivers. We did that in my State of Maryland after fighting the liquor lobby for a long time, but we finally got that done.

We could also pass my bill, the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act, which would support State and local government efforts to build safer transportation networks for bicyclists and for pedestrians.

Unfortunately, this bill does not do anything like that. Indeed, it is hard to see how it will reduce drunk driving at all.

It is obviously not a serious attempt to address the social problem of drunk driving. It does not increase criminal penalties for DUI anywhere in the country. It does nothing to promote public education about the dangers of drunk driving. It will, sadly, improve nothing on the roads.

As an immigration law, it does nothing to make it more difficult for undocumented people to enter our country unlawfully, nor does it make it easier for people to acquire the documents to enter the country legally.

It is a purely punitive measure, and it is both radically underinclusive and radically overbroad.

It only targets the very tiny fraction of all DUI violations in the country committed by noncitizens and does nothing to crack down on drunk driving by citizens, who are responsible for the vast majority of it.

Immigrants who drive drunk are already covered by the criminal law, and the undocumented ones are already categorically deportable. They don't need to drive drunk to be deported. They are deportable now because they are not in the country lawfully.

Additionally, because of the breadth of DUI statutes around the country, this legislation will render deportable people who never drove drunk at all without any opportunity for judicial discretion or waiver. Under current immigration law, undocumented people are already both inadmissible and deportable. Furthermore, conviction for serious DUIs already render even lawful permanent residents who have been in the country for decades potentially deportable and inadmissible in the first instance.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, any noncitizen who is convicted of or who admits to a crime involving moral turpitude, a so- called CIMT, is generally inadmissible to the country. Likewise, any noncitizen who is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude where a sentence of 1 year or longer may be imposed is deportable from the country. Serious DUI offenses are already deportable crimes under current law.

The following DUI offenses are all considered crimes involving moral turpitude: any DUI where the maximum possible penalty is a year or more and where there is serious bodily harm, hit-and-runs, any aggravated DUI, and any DUI involving driving with knowledge of having an invalid, suspended, or revoked license.

This bill goes far beyond even this very stringent current law by making permanent resident green card holders deportable for a single infraction even where no one is hurt and no property is damaged. This will lead to some very harsh results.

In Arizona, sleeping in your car while drunk without even starting the car can get you convicted of a misdemeanor DUI. Under this bill, a single conviction for even that offense would make a 20-year permanent resident of America, a green card holder, deportable from the country.

That person is rightfully deportable if they engage in an act of drunk driving that hurts someone or kills someone or if they drive drunk without a license, but that is the law today.

An undocumented alien is, of course, deportable in all cases. You don't need a statute to deport them for falling asleep drunk in their car.

Today, there are nearly 13 million green card holders, permanent residents, in the United States. These are people who have followed all the rules. We are not talking about undocumented people, the people who are here unlawfully. They are already taken care of.

There are 13 million green card holders in the United States with 9 million eligible to become citizens now. Categorically deporting individuals who are convicted for any DUI offense without any regard for the severity or consequence simply defies common sense. This legislation on a tiny subset of criminal events distracts from the real problem.

My distinguished colleague has invoked several terrible drunk driving incidents by repeat offenders who are undocumented. They should have been deported from the country long ago. My colleague is talking about people who drive drunk and kill people. That is already a deportable and inadmissible offense. That is not what the meaning of this legislation is.

Let's look at a tiny slice of the criminal events we are talking about and ask whether, in fact, that is something that advances public policy. I don't think it does. Let's work together to impose compulsory ignition interlock devices on the cars of all convicted drunk drivers, including the overwhelming majority who are U.S. citizens. Let's really make the roads safer and stop the repetitive scapegoating of immigrants.

We can address DUIs in a serious way here in Congress if we are serious about the issue. That is what I did as a State senator in Maryland. We could do that across the country, Madam Speaker.

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, the distinguished gentleman from Georgia has just offered us a vivid demonstration of what is wrong with this bill and how the rhetoric supporting it doesn't support the bill. He describes an indescribably tragic, terrible case where an undocumented alien is driving a car and kills people in the gentleman's district.

First of all, that person already could be deported just by virtue of being undocumented.

Secondly, under current law, having killed someone, he would be immediately deportable. He was convicted of his offense, sentenced to jail, and he would be deported immediately upon leaving. In fact, the President could commute his sentence, which is what he has been doing, and have him deported right now. You don't need this bill in order to make that happen.

That is a demonstration of why this is superfluous legislation. All it does is to say in a case where, say, nobody is hurt at all, the case of somebody who is asleep in their car in Arizona, for example--there are statutes like that where you don't even have to be in a moving vehicle. If someone is drunk inside a vehicle, nobody is hurt, and there is no property damage, that person could be deported as a permanent resident even if they have been here for 20 years with kids in school and nothing else on their record.

That is all this bill is doing. It is an opportunity to get up and make speeches about how we are going to get rid of people who kill people in their cars as drunk drivers. That is already the law.

What I am saying is if we are going to take the time on the floor to deal with the problem of drunk driving--and, again, I take this very seriously because I lost a cousin to a drunk driver who is a U.S. citizen, not a noncitizen. The vast majority of drunk driving incidents occur because of citizens, not because of noncitizens, because the vast majority of the people in the country are here legally as citizens.

Let's do a serious thing. Let's say anybody convicted in the country--a U.S. citizen, a permanent resident, or an unlawful person who is somehow still in the country--must have a permanent ignition interlock device put on their car.

Obviously, the undocumented person is going to be deported. Fine. Now, what about everybody else? Should convicted drunk drivers be able to just go back out on the road?

This is the fight I had with Republicans in Annapolis when I was a State senator. They were the ones saying that is too harsh a punishment. I am saying to them, no. Maybe it is painful that you have to go through the ignition interlock device, which says you do the Breathalyzer in your car before you can drive again. They say that it is painful to have to do that every morning and going back from work. That doesn't compare to the pain of someone who loses a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a cousin, an uncle, an aunt, or what have you.

If we want to deal with drunk driving, let's seriously deal with drunk driving. This legislation is not the way to do it.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington.

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, one can only regard with amazement the high indignation with which the previous gentleman speaker just mobilized against the Democrats in Congress. He accuses us of not taking DUIs seriously, and nothing he said could provide a more striking contrast between the parties.

I am afraid I have to go there. I was hoping not to have to go there. I seem to remember when we met in joint session at what would have been the State of a Union address in this year of 2025.

We left the Chamber after several years of--it seemed like years-- several hours of President Trump's speech. We got outside. Then a car plowed into the back of a parked police cruiser. The police descend on this situation. The door opens up. The driver staggers out. It turns out it is the chief of staff to Speaker Mike Johnson.

He is then administered the Breathalyzer test. He got a DWI. He is driving while drunk. Maybe it is a DUI, driving under the influence, in the District of Columbia. Speaker Johnson immediately said that everybody deserves a second chance and we should forgive him. We didn't make a big deal out of that.

We have a law right now which allows for the deportation and the inadmissibility of anybody who goes out and drives drunk and injures somebody. If they are here unlawfully, they are kicked out anyway. We are talking about permanent residents to the country. If they go out and get a DUI and injure somebody, they are immediately deported from the country.

They talk about all those cases. Those cases are already covered. We are talking about those cases where somebody is not injured at all and there is no property damage at all. They want to deport those people, even if they have family and even if they have been in the country for 15 or 20 years. They don't even want to give any discretion to the judge to decide.

That is what the disagreement is about. It is about this very small matter in a small number of cases where nobody is injured.

If the distinguished gentleman and his colleagues are really interested in doing something about drunk driving in America, let's use this as the occasion to do it. We have a bill, which is a bipartisan bill, called the End Driving While Intoxicated Act. It has been introduced by Mr. Mann, my colleague from Kansas; my colleague from New Hampshire, Mr. Pappas, who is in my party; my colleague from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, who is in the Republican Party; and by myself.

We are the lead cosponsors. What it says is if a State is going to get Federal funding for highways and then if somebody is convicted for drunk driving in their State, there must be a compulsory ignition interlock device installed in the car.

What does that mean? For a period of time after someone has been convicted for drunk driving, they have to breathe into a Breathalyzer machine before their car will start. Some of our colleagues say that is too much or that it is too painful for them to go through that. No, it is too painful for us to lose thousands of people on the streets every year to drunk drivers.

If we are serious about the problem and the gentleman invites us to be serious about it, let's be serious about it. Let's do what a majority of the States have done. Let's make this a nationwide program. A compulsory ignition interlock device is saving lives across the country. I think it is in 31 States now and in the District of Columbia.

Why don't we do that? Why don't we do something real, rather than talk about cases that have nothing to do with the bill? Already if a person goes out and kills somebody in their car, they will be deported from the country. Whether they are a lawful permanent resident or an undocumented person and they could have been deported anyway, that is already taken care of.

I know that those are the lurid episodes that we want to invoke for this legislation, but that is not what this legislation is about.

In any event, it doesn't do anything to reduce drunk driving in America. Let's reduce drunk driving in America. Could we get behind that bipartisan legislation?

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, forgive my emotion. For those of us whose families have experienced it and who have lost people on the roads, drunk driving is a problem of immense magnitude and seriousness. It changes the lives of families all across the country all the time.

I wish our colleagues on the House Committee on the Judiciary would bring out the End Driving While Intoxicated Act legislation to spread the compulsory ignition interlock device around the country. A majority of States and jurisdictions are using it right now. It is working. It should be nationwide.

We can save literally thousands of lives by doing that because it is a very, very small percentage of the population that engages in the profoundly antisocial act of driving drunk. For those who are undocumented, they are already covered, and they are already gone. For those who go out and seriously hurt people or kill people, they are already gone. That is already deportable. That is already inadmissible.

In an effort to try to find another way to go out and demonize and vilify immigrants, this legislation is now picking on people who are permanent residents of the country and could have been here for decades with their families. They get a DUI, which is a terrible thing regardless. They get a DUI, nobody is hurt, and there is no property damage. Then they want to deport those people from the country.

They want to kick those people out of the country. I presume they have got their votes together. They will vote for it. I presume it passes. It doesn't do anything to deal with the problem of drunk driving in America.

The vast majority of drunk driving episodes have nothing to do with a permanent resident who drives drunk and doesn't hurt anybody. That is not where we are losing lives. We are losing lives because there is a small percentage of people who drive drunk repeatedly. The vast majority of them are citizens.

We are not taking that seriously enough, but a lot of States are. In fact, a majority of the States have now imposed the compulsory ignition interlock device on people who have driven drunk and are convicted of it.

That is what we should be working on. That is something that will actually effectuate a change and make a difference. Why can't we do that? That is all I say to my colleague.

I hope they will join us in this legislation. It is bipartisan legislation that comes from the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Mann) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). I am on it. We have Republicans. We have Democrats. Why don't we do something real to make the roads in America safer?

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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