Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, gave a powerful speech on the House floor Wednesday, slamming the passing of the Laken Riley Act.
“I want the American people to know with eyes wide open what is inside this bill, because we stand here just two days after President Trump gave unconditional pardons to violent criminals who attacked our nation’s Capitol on January 6th,” she said, referring to Donald Trump’s blanket pardon of more than 1,500 insurrectionists.
“And these are the people who want you to believe—who want us to believe—that they’re trying to ‘keep criminals off the street,’” Ocasio-Cortez added.
She then fixed in on the most serious critique of the bill, which is that noncitizens risk losing the right to due process, allowing for the detention of immigrants simply accused of a crime.
“So when a private prison camp opens in your town and they say ‘we didn’t know this was going to happen,’ know that they did, and they voted for it,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“When a dreamer is disappeared from your classroom, when the president of the United States destroys what is left of the Constitution—as he’s announced in his attack on birthright citizenship—they will all say, ‘we didn’t know this was coming,’” she concluded. “And I want the American people to know that they did. This vote represents it.”