Bill Dismantles Due Process and Upends the U.S. Justice System
After failing for decades to pass legislation to create a functional U.S. immigration system that is fair and humane, yesterday Congress passed a dangerous and wide-ranging anti-immigrant bill that will upend due process across the American justice system, put decision-making power in people’s deportation cases at the mercy of state politicians, and inevitably result in family separation and detention of children.
The Laken Riley Act passed in the Senate earlier this week and passed a House vote yesterday. We expect President Trump to sign it into law.
The bill:
- dramatically expands the use of mandatory detention — with no access to bond or release — for mere admissions, arrests, or charges of criminal activity, regardless of whether an individual is ever convicted
- uses the civil immigration system as a proxy for the criminal legal system to punish immigrants as a whole, eroding basic principles of due process such as the presumption of innocence, the right to be considered for bond, or the right to counsel that is afforded in criminal proceedings
- will harm children and adults, and could subject children to indefinite detention
- empowers anti-immigrant governors to usurp the federal government's role in presiding over immigration law by allowing state attorneys general to sue the federal government to force the detention or deportation of immigrants.
"With this bill, Congress has allowed anti-immigrant extremists to exploit the tragic murder of Laken Riley in order to vilify immigrants and eliminate due process from the immigration system,” said National Immigrant Justice Center Executive Director Mary Meg McCarthy. “It has nothing to do with averting future harm for people like Ms. Riley, and everything to do with stoking fear and punishing our immigrant communities.”
In the wake of the bill’s passage and the Trump administration’s rapid rollout of extreme anti-immigrant executive orders, NIJC urges concerned lawmakers and community members to work together to defend immigrants in our communities and demand access to justice for all.