Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) admitted she regrets siding together with her Republican colleagues when voting in favor of a migrant detention invoice earlier this 12 months, saying she trusted the Trump administration on the time to work with Democrats.
“As I’ve thought about it over the past couple of months, I probably would have voted differently. It’s a vote that I regret,” Hayes stated at a CNN city corridor on Thursday.
Hayes and 45 different Home Democrats voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act, a invoice named after a Georgia nursing scholar murdered by a Venezuelan migrant. It required that migrants with out authorized standing who’re accused of crimes starting from theft to violence be detained, even when the allegation has not been proved.
The invoice additionally handed the Senate, and Trump signed it into legislation in January.
Many critics of the legislation, together with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) raised considerations over due course of rights for migrants on the time, a problem that has been highlighted extra in current months following the Trump administration’s aggressive push in opposition to immigrants.
“In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they would be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and sent out for deportation without a day in court,” Ocasio-Cortez stated.
Hayes instructed host Kaitlan Collins that she voted for the laws due to a “small piece of it” overlaying crimes that “caused injury or death to a police officer.” She stated she believed on the time that the Trump administration would work with Home Democrats.
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“I trusted that this administration … if they wanted to have border security, they wanted to work with Democrats, that we could actually move forward,” Hayes stated. “I’m not really sure of that because I’ve seen the rhetoric that has come out and the attacks that have been targeted towards immigrants. So I am very cautious and careful when I’m negotiating my votes moving forward.”
Rep. Derek Tran (D-Calif.) additionally spoke on the city corridor and appeared much less regretful of his vote, stating that he attracts “a line when it comes to crime.”
He added, “I believe that when you commit a crime, you should be deported.”
