Protect Our Law Enforcement with Immigration Control and Enforcement Act of 2023
Floor Speech
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Mr. MOORE of Alabama. 2494.
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Mr. MOORE of Alabama. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chair, as we celebrate National Police Week, it is only appropriate that we pass H.R. 2494, the POLICE Act of 2023.
H.R. 2494 makes an alien removable if they assault a police officer. 43,649--that is the staggering number of law enforcement officers who were assaulted by performing their duties in just 2021. That represents an 11.2 percent increase from 2020.
In both 2021 and 2022, at least 64 law enforcement officers were shot and killed in the line of duty. In my home State of Alabama, five law enforcement officers were shot and killed. That is a 21 percent increase over the number killed from 2010 to 2020.
To make matters worse, many of those incidents involve criminal aliens who take advantage of our immigration system and then turn around and assault the very people who protect us every day.
In a single 2-month operation in 2020, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested aliens with criminal histories with 1,500 convictions and charges for assault.
In 2019, ICE arrested aliens who accounted for 45,804 assault convictions and charges.
The reports speak for themselves. Just 2 months ago, an illegal alien violently assaulted a U.S. Border Patrol agent as she attempted to arrest him. In November 2022, two aliens were arrested for pushing, dragging, and punching a Border Patrol agent in another incident.
These acts of violence are not limited to just Border Patrol. Just last fall, a criminal alien was sentenced to 30 years in prison for stabbing a New York Police Department officer, taking his gun and then shooting at other officers.
In 2020, a criminal alien shot and killed a Houston police sergeant as he responded to a domestic violence call.
Despite these acts, the immigration statute does not explicitly make assaulting a law enforcement officer a deportable offense. H.R. 2494 changes that by creating grounds of removability specific to aliens who assault law enforcement officers.
Although many such offenders can be removed based on other grounds, such as an aggravated assault felony or a crime involving moral turpitude, H.R. 2494 ensures that criminal aliens cannot escape the immigration consequences of their actions through legal loopholes.
Determining whether an alien is removable from the country is not as straightforward as it should be. In a case from last year, a Federal judge observed that the process to determine whether an alien had been convicted of a crime that would make him removable presented ``a single legal question about a single conviction.''
Despite seemingly easy questions, the analysis ``has spawned, over 11 years and counting: four decisions by the [Board of Immigration Appeals], four decisions by three different immigration judges, approximately six rounds of briefing, and a split opinion by [a Federal] court.''
This bill would avoid those absurd results of that approach to make crystal clear that an alien who assaults a law enforcement officer can be removed from the United States.
Democrats have argued that this bill would encompass too much conduct due to State definitions of assault. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Listen to what the bill requires: first, either an admission or a conviction of an assault or an offense; the assault must have been against a law enforcement officer; and that assault must have been while the law enforcement officer was performing his or her duties, because of the performance of those duties, or because of his or her status as a law enforcement officer.
Democrats' far-fetched hypotheticals make light of assault against law enforcement officers and do not align with reality. If an alien admits to assaulting a law enforcement officer but a far-left prosecutor refuses to prosecute that crime, why should that alien escape immigration consequences?
Make no mistake, criminal aliens who assault dedicated men and women of law enforcement should find no safe harbor under our immigration laws.
H.R. 2494 gives adjudicators a tool to ensure that these criminal aliens can quickly be removed from this country. In doing so, we make America safer, not only for our citizens but also for the hardworking men and women of law enforcement who serve our community every day.
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Mr. MOORE of Alabama. Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Garbarino).
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Mr. MOORE of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, let me say this: I think this bill is very important and extremely timely. We know that we have had 5 million encounters on the U.S. southern border since Biden has been President, and in that situation with title 42 expiring, we expect more and more law enforcement is going to have to interact with aliens. Some we know are probably on some watch list somewhere, and they have a criminal history.
I think that it is timely. I think that our friends across the aisle need to join us in supporting police officers this week and get on board to support this bill, as well.
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Mr. MOORE of Alabama. Mr. Chair, I urge our colleagues to pass this bill into law and support our policemen and -women in uniform.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. MOORE of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
Mr. Correa is a good friend of mine, I think one of my closest friends across the aisle, so I am going to have a little debate on his amendment.
H.R. 2494 requires that an alien either be convicted of an offense involving assault of a law enforcement officer or admit to assaulting a law enforcement officer.
Contrary to the Democrats' talking points on the other side, not every ground of removability in the Immigration and Nationality Act requires a conviction.
In fact, here are some of the removable offenses that do not require conviction: smuggling, marriage fraud, drug abuse or drug addiction, trafficking, document fraud, terrorist activities, and participation in violations of religious freedom.
By requiring at least an admission of assault, this bill conforms to the pattern of other grounds of removability even exceeding many of those already listed.
The language of this bill also tracks closely with the language for certain grounds of inadmissibility as well, such as crimes involving moral turpitude and controlled substance offenses.
In a world of increasing threats against law enforcement officers-- whom we all support--it makes no sense to require a conviction. If an alien has admitted to assaulting a law enforcement officer, then why can't the alien's own admission be used to show that alien is deportable?
Listen to what the bill requires: an admission or a conviction of an assault offense; the assault must have been against a law enforcement officer; and that assault must have been while the law enforcement officer was performing his or her duties or because of his or her status as a law enforcement officer.
Even then, DHS would have to charge the alien as removable, the immigration judge would have to sustain that charge of removability, and then the alien would be allowed to appear for relief to remain in the United States.
This amendment would strike the reasonable provision that would allow criminal aliens to be removed if they admit to assaulting a law enforcement officer.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. MOORE of Alabama. Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Moore of Alabama) having assumed the chair, Mr. Moylan, Acting Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 2494) to make the assault of a law enforcement officer a deportable offense, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.
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