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Two hundred and one House Democrats voted against a bill that Republicans say would prevent dangerous migrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children from walking free on the streets.
The legislation passed in a 225-201 vote. Just seven Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of the bill: Reps. Adam Gray, D-Calif.; Jared Golden, D-Maine; Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.; Don Davis, D-N.C.; Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas; Laura Gillen, D-N.Y., and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.
The Kayla Hamilton Act is named after a 20-year-old woman with autism who was killed by a 16-year-old from El Salvador, Walter Javier Martinez, in 2022. Martinez pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in April.
Martiez came to the U.S. illegally as an unaccompanied minor and was a member of the notorious MS-13 gang, according to a press release from the Maryland State Attorney’s Office in Hartford County.
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The bill, led by Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., would heighten screening requirements for unaccompanied migrant children (UAC) who come to the U.S. undocumented in ways that Republicans argue could prevent future tragedies like Hamilton’s.
“I think in this one instance, a simple phone call to El Salvador would have kept him in a secure facility. An eyeball check on gang tattoos on his body would have kept him in the secure facility, because he had both. He would have never been on our streets. He would have been in a security facility pending his immigration hearing, which happens pretty quickly,” Fry told Fox News Digital Tuesday afternoon.
His bill would mandate that the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) screen unaccompanied minors for gang tattoos and place UACs who have such indicators in secure federal facilities rather than letting them go to a sponsor somewhere in the U.S.
It would also prohibit unaccompanied minors from going to sponsors who are also undocumented in the U.S.
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Regarding the sponsors they are placed with, the federal government would be required to do a background check on all adults in the household, which would include fingerprint scans and an immigration status check.
Progressives who argued against the bill on the House floor said it would harm already vulnerable children.
“Republicans are treating unaccompanied migrant children like criminals,” Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., said. “We must use every tool at our disposal to protect vulnerable children. … This bill criminalizes children and creates dangerous precedent that only makes them more vulnerable.”
Rep. Luz Rivas, D-Calif., said it “undermines and strips critical rights from vulnerable children” and “subjects children as young as 12 to strip searches.”
Fry said in response, however, “We already do medical evaluations of children when they come into this country. It already is in practice. All we’re saying is if there’s a tattoo on your shoulder, on your forehead, that’s a gang tattoo, we’re saying, ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn’t let them out onto the streets.”
“I think some intellectual honesty is really important for them,” Fry told Fox News Digital after the debate. “They want to complain about medical evaluations for kids. That was a Democrat proposal. That was the Democrat law that they did. But if they want to misrepresent what this bill is about, just because they don’t like Trump, I think kids and their safety are more important than being mad at the president.”
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