The GOP’s New Violent Gang Bill is a Trojan Horse Designed to Push the Trump Administration’s Anti-Immigrant Agenda
On September 14, H.R. 3697, the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act which is designed to target transnational gangs like MS-13 but would actually have a devastating impact on immigrant communities and individuals fleeing violence in Central America, passed the House. 222 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted for the legislation and it will now make its way to the Senate.
The bill would modify the Immigration and Nationality Act, the basic body of immigration law in the United States, creating a new, broader definition of what can be considered a “criminal gang.” This new interpretation could ensnare any group of five or more people for committing a single offense or more within the last five years. The offenses cover a broad range of crimes, from tampering with witnesses to identity theft. Immigrants hit with this designation are not allowed to challenge the ruling at any hearing connected to their deportation process. Additionally, the bill would allow the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to bestow this classification upon “an ongoing group, club, organization, or association of 5 or more persons.” This could include groups that can hardly be viewed as criminal gangs, whether it’s a political club or a religious organization that offers sanctuary to immigrants. Indeed, under the act, one of the offenses that triggers deportations is “bringing in and harboring certain aliens” or “aiding or assisting certain aliens to enter the United States.”
That religious organizations could be targeted is particularly concerning as the sanctuary church movement is growing under Trump. These churches provide refuge for undocumented immigrants resisting deportation and, although ICE technically discourages arrests at “sensitive locations” like churches, agents have also recently showed up to arrest people at places many might assume are sensitive, including hospitals, labor hearings, and courthouses.
Beyond expanding the power of these agencies, this legislation also doubles down on the same kinds of anti-gang policies that are growing increasingly prevalent throughout the U.S. criminal justice system; policies which are regularly criticized for being unconstitutional.
For example, individuals can be targeted, not just for crimes they commit but for their associations with given groups. Immigrants looking to enter the country can be sent back if an ICE agent has “reason to believe” the person might be associated with a gang. Despite the fact that gangs regularly exploit minors and coerce people into participating in criminal activity, there would be no waiver for being juvenile or for committing a crime while under duress. Such individuals would be prohibited from asylum, withholding of removal, or any other form of relief. This means that refugees fleeing gang violence could be sent right back to the place that they will end up brutalized.
In a statement on the legislation issued by The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) And National Immigration Project Of The National Lawyers’ Guild (NIP), the case of a young woman, referred to as just “Maria” to protect her identity, is cited to demonstrate the potential impact of the bill. Maria grew up in El Salvador where she was regularly beaten by her family and gang raped as a child, although the police never investigated the crime. She became the target of a gang, who forcibly tattooed their symbols onto her body. When she sought protection from the police, she was beaten under suspicion that she was a gang member. At the age of 18 she fled to the United States, where she obtained asylum through the help of the NIJC. If H.R. 3697 had been the law when she tried to enter the country, she would have been sent right back to El Salvador.
H.R. 3697 also encourages DHS to rely on the gang databases of local law enforcement for information. These databases don’t just cast a wide net: they’re frequently inaccurate and plagued with errors. A 2016 audit of California’s gang database, which includes over 150,000 names, found uncorroborated entries and blatant errors, including over 600 names that should have been purged from the list. In May, Wilmer Catalan-Ramirez, an undocumented immigrant living in Chicago, sued the city’s police department, ICE and other agencies after ICE dragged him out of his house with guns drawn. According to the lawsuit, ICE demanded to know where Catalan-Ramirez was keeping his drugs and they fractured his shoulder slamming him to the ground. Catalan-Ramirez says he’s never been part of a gang, but his name was on the Chicago Police Department’s gang database, which ICE relied on for the raid.
H.R. 3697 was sponsored and introduced by Representative Barbara Comstock, a Republican in Virginia’s 10th district. In pushing for the legislation, Comstack specifically cited MS-13 (AKA Mara Salvatrucha), which has committed brutal murders in her state. After H.R. 3697 cleared the House, Rep. Comstock and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Thomas Homan requesting information on how the agencies are working to combat organizations like MS-13.
The birth and rise of MS-13 in El Salvador can actually be directly connected to U.S. policy. The Reagan administration supported the country’s right-wing dictatorship through its civil war, pumping more than $4 billion into the country’s government and working to cover up atrocities it actively participated in. 75,000 people died in the war, but many Salvadorans fled to the United States. A number of migrants ended up in Los Angeles neighborhoods controlled by gangs and, after California vastly expanded gang sweeps during the late 80s, many of these members ended up behind bars. Under the Clinton administration, thousands of criminals were deported back to El Salvador, a country left ravaged by its recent war. Using methods it had learned from LA gangs, MS-13 was able to expand within El Salvador and move its United States affiliates beyond California.
It’s unclear how this bill would be effective at actually fighting a gang like MS-13. Diane Eikenberry, Associate Director of Policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center, told me the bill is essentially an attack on immigrants. “This bill is all about making it as easy as possible to deport as many immigrants as possible,” she said, “For the bill’s proponents, basic constitutional rights to challenge government accusations and petition for help are impediments, so they toss them out under the cover of inflammatory rhetoric conflating immigrants with gangs. What is especially frustrating is that U.S. immigration and criminal law already provide numerous ways to go after people accused of gang or criminal activity.”
And while MS-13 is being cited as the justification for this legislation their power has actually declined despite the recent focus says Jorja Leap, who studied the gang for a decade and wrote a book on them. According to ICE’S division responsible for gang investigations, the agency arrested 429 MS-13 members in 2016, compared to the 114,434 individuals it arrested in total during the year. “It’s not to say that the gruesome crimes have not occurred, I just question why they’re being highlighted now,” Leap told CNN, “It’s troubling. Gang crime is always on people’s minds, brutal crimes are always on people’s minds, why here, why now, and why attribute it to immigration?”
