During Wednesday’s House Judiciary hearing on “Restoring Immigration Enforcement in America,” Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas did some debunking of the GOP’s most racist and ignorant mythmaking concerning undocumented immigrants’ crime rates and tax burdens.
“I do want to be clear. Federal law already, no matter if it’s under the Biden administration or if it’s under a Republican administration,” Crockett said, “we all agree that we want to be safe.”
She reiterated that the Laken Riley Act, which was passed by the Senate on Monday, and will strip away due process for undocumented immigrants who are accused of a crime, is an egregious and inhumane overstepping of authority.
“I want to play a little game with you,” Crocket said to witness David Bier, who is the director of Immigration Studies at the CATO Institute. Bier has been critical of Trump and the Republican Party’s disingenuous handling of immigration policy and enforcement in our country.
“It’s called ‘rhetoric versus reality,’” Crockett continued. “Is this rhetoric or reality? Immigrants commit more crimes than U.S. citizens.”
“Rhetoric,” Bier responded.
Crockett received the same responses from Bier when she asked if “immigrants are just living off the federal government and contribute nothing,” and whether “immigrants only enter at the southern border.”
Crockett then asked Bier about the perpetrators of various shootings across the country. Crockett asked about terrible shootings like the one that took place in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, of nine Black parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. She also asked about a shooting in El Paso, Texas, in 2020, at a Walmart, targeting Latinos, that resulted in the death of 23 people. Her last question was about the 10 Black people shot and killed at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in 2022.
“In fact, in each of these cases, it was white supremacists,” Crockett said.
Crockett is easily one of the shining stars in the Democratic Party and continues to work fearlessly in the face of blistering ignorance and bigotry.
Posted with permission from Daily Kos.
