The House voted Friday to define in federal law what constitutes a “crime of violence,” a change that would make it easier to charge immigrants with an aggravated felony and deport them.
The Community Safety and Security Act passed 247-152 and was introduced just a week ago by Rep. Karen Handel, R-Ga. The bill is a response to a Supreme Court ruling in April that said there’s not enough clarity in federal law to charge immigrants with aggravated felony, because that determination is based on whether they committed a “crime of violence,” a term found in another part of the federal code that isn’t defined.
Under the bill, the term would be defined in a way that includes a range of offenses, including assault, voluntary manslaughter, attempted kidnapping, sexual assault, domestic violence, murder, human trafficking, and others. With that change in place, the government could again charge immigrants with aggravated felony, a charge that opens up criminal aliens to mandatory removal from the U.S.
Supporters of the bill said that aside from its impact on immigration, the legislation will also help the federal government penalize people for crimes unrelated to immigration. Handel said on the House floor that the change would boost safety and security across the country.
“This legislation provides critical clarity to the definition of crime of violence in the United States code in order to keep violent criminals and ensure the safety of our communities,” Handel said on the House floor Friday ahead of the vote, touting support of the legislation from the Fraternal Order of Police. “Failure to address this issue would foster vagueness and uncertainty in our courts.”
The bill was criticized by immigrant rights groups ahead of the vote, who said the expanded definition was created to target immigrants and could lead to an increase in deportations.
“Because this definition is cross-referenced widely throughout the criminal code and incorporated into federal immigration law, this bill will trigger a significant expansion of the penalties attached to even minor criminal conduct in federal criminal court, exacerbate the mass incarceration crisis, and render even more immigrants subject to the disproportionate penalty of deportation,” the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Immigrant Defense Project, and other organizations said in a statement.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, criticized the bill while speaking on the floor Friday, saying the bill was brought to the floor in a “hasty, precipitous manner.”
