Pramila Jayapal on the Laken Riley Act: "It Takes Away All Due Process for Undocumented Immigrants"
Plus, the former Progressive Caucus Chair sounds off on the future of H1B reform under Trump.
On Wednesday, we stopped by the Capitol Hill office of Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, former Progressive Caucus Chair and former head of the Judiciary subcommittee on immigration. Jayapal was kind enough to answer our questions on the Laken Riley Act and H1B reform. We include her responses below, complete and unabridged —
Immigration Q&A: Rep. Pramila Jayapal
Nico: Tell me a little about the Laken Riley Act. Where are you at with this bill?
Rep. Jayapal: So, I think what’s really important to know about this is that the bill does absolutely nothing to change in any way the existing law, which says that if you commit a heinous crime like that, and you are convicted of that, if you commit that crime, you are put in mandatory detention. And you can be deported actually, for that crime.
But similarly, for shoplifting, if you’re convicted of shoplifting or theft, you also get mandatorily detained. So, this bill doesn’t actually change anything that would make a difference to that case, but it’s named Laken Riley, and what it does do is it takes away all due process for any undocumented immigrants.
So, in other words, on the criminal justice side, we believe that there should be a fair day in court, you should actually be able to go through a process where it’s determined whether or not you committed the crime that you’re arrested with or arrested for or charged with.
Laken Riley Bill says you don’t get due process at all if you are arrested for or charged with but not convicted that you would be mandatorily detained. And that makes no sense at all because you haven’t even gone through the process, and I gave several examples of a person who was wrongly charged and spent 10 days in jail. Under this bill, that guy would be mandatorily detained, perpetually.
If you’re a TPS or DACA student and you just happen to like take a little bag of chips off the shelf, you are put into the same category as somebody who was convicted of murder. So, it’s a complete red herring because it’s not making Laken Riley’s family…it’s not doing anything different for Laken Riley, and it’s sweeping up all these people in this new process and entirely eliminates due process.
Nico: A lot of your Democrat colleagues had similar reservations about this aspect of the bill…
Rep. Jayapal: And then there’s another part of it that’s unconstitutional, which is giving State Attorney Generals the ability to sue on Federal Immigration law, and so that is also a problem that has already been defined by 8 of 9 Supreme Court Justices as unconstitutional, so that the other part of this, which is that it’s likely unconstitutional in that sense as well.
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Nico: I’m asking all the members of the “Samosa Caucus” about the H1B visa program. What’s your take on it?
Rep. Jayapal: Well, I think I’m still the only member of Congress who has ever been on the H1B, so I was actually on an H1B visa. I think that the H1B visa play a really important role in the full gambit of ways that people come to the United States. But, it does need to be updated in the same way that all the other provisions need to be updated.
Nico: What are your main concerns (about the H1B visa program)?
Rep. Jayapal: One of the main things is, it should not be used to displace American workers. It has become kind of a visa just for low level tech workers, when really it was intended to fill gaps in our workforce and to ensure that we were keeping some of the best and the brightest, if you will. So, that was really the purpose of an H1B, and I think it needs to be modified so that we are ensuring that it still what it continues to be what it’s for.
And, I think it has ended up being more of a permanent status because we haven’t updated the rest of the system, so the H1B workers come in, and they’re not able to transition to any other legal pathway, because we don’t have the room for them to do that in those other legal pathways. So, people are resentful of them because they’ve been here for a long time on what was supposed to be a temporary visa.
But, I think the frustration is misplaced because they also need to have a way to- other legal pathways- to be able to get their kids in, and for them to be able to transition to other ways in being able to stay in the country. I think that there are a number of changes that need to be made. We also need more enforcement and audits of the program, so that we are sure that employers…
Look, it’s really the employers at the end of the day that are, you know, sometimes abusing the program and using it for low level workers, so we need to monitor that. And we need to take away those arbitrary per country caps because the H1B program operates on per country caps, where a country like India has the same cap as a small country. You end up being very out of balance in terms of who gets these visas, and they’re gone in the first day usually.
Nico: So, in that case, are you with Bernie on this one or Elon on this debate?
(Context: Senator Bernie Sanders published a 2 page report stating that he thought the H1B visa program was not employing the best and brightest, but instead the program was being misused to replace American workers and pay lower wages, as well as taking advantage of H1B visa holders and treating them like indentured servants.
Billionaire Tech Mogul Elon Musk disagreed, saying that the H1B visa program was necessary as the US didn’t have enough skilled workers).
Rep. Jayapal: (Laughing) I’m with Pramila Jayapal. I know a lot more about it than probably both of them. Look, I think that there’s important points that both of them are making.
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