Rep. Eric Swalwell has claimed that the Riley Act is about targeting people because they have brown skin.
Both the House and the Senate passed the Laken Riley Act earlier this week, a common-sense piece of legislation that requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest and detain illegal aliens until they are deported from the United States.
Swalwell was one of the 159 Democrats to vote against the act, arguing that doing so would be racist against illegal immigrants.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked Swalwell why he believes it is an “ominous sign” that many Democrats supported the Laken Riley Act.
Swalwell responded:
Because people are going to be targeted because they’re brown. That’s what’s going to happen in America, because we’re not saying now that you have to go through the court process and be convicted of a violent crime — and I don’t want any undocumented individual who commits a violent crime to be here. I think they should be removed after they serve their sentence.
But what this says is if the officer just says, you know what, that person looks like they’re undocumented, I’m going to pull them over, now, in the officer’s mind, whether it was a lawful detention or not, he’s got the person pulled over.
If they are undocumented, [not] having committed any crime, supporting their family, going to work, working in an agriculture field, working in hospitality, they’re gone. It’s the predicate now to deport. And I think that’s wrong.
And by the way, we have a workforce crisis in America. So, if we can get rid of the most violent folks in America, secure the border, we don’t want to disrupt the people who are out in the fields doing these jobs that no one else will take, the people who are working in our restaurants, the people who are working in our hotels, because the cost for everyone else will go up.
The Laken Riley Act was named after Laken Riley, the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was brutally assaulted and murdered by an illegal alien from Venezuela and welcomed into America by the Biden regime.
On Friday, White House Press Secretary was asked whether Joe Biden would sign the act if it were presented to him before leaving office.
"I'm not going to get into hypotheticals,” she responded.
REPORTER: Will Biden sign the Laken Riley Act if it's presented to him before he leaves office?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "I'm not going to get into hypotheticals."
The short answer is no.
— Ben Kew (@ben_kew) January 10, 2025
