New Republican Bills Would Ramp Up A Trump Deportation Force

Elise Foley

WASHINGTON ― House Republicans are moving forward this week with an attempt to make President Donald Trump’s promised “deportation force” even bigger and, potentially, more heavily armed.

The House Judiciary Committee is set to mark up multiple immigration bills on Thursday, including one from committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) that would facilitate mass deportations. Borrowing from past legislation to bolster Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the bill would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officers to have access to not just standard-issue handguns and stun guns, but also M-4 rifles or equivalents.

The little-noticed legislation is one of four immigration-related bills that the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider, two of them specifically focused on ICE, the third on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the fourth on human trafficking. If passed, they would give the Trump administration more resources to deport immigrants and make it easier to do so.

“As a package, the House Judiciary bills would turbocharge Trump’s mass deportation agenda,” Frank Sharry, head of pro-immigration group America’s Voice, said in an email. “It seems Goodlatte and fellow Republicans want to go down in history as the Congress that aided and abetted one of America’s darkest chapters.”

Goodlatte’s ICE authorization bill would add 10,000 officers focused on deportation, 2,500 in detention, and 60 trial attorneys. It would authorize officers to make arrests without a warrant if they had reasonable grounds to believe the person had committed a felony, and would allow ICE to arrest people for civil offenses without a warrant, even if they are not considered “likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained,” which is the case under current law.

The measure would codify the president’s new Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement, or VOICE, office, which has placed all community engagement under a frame of immigrants as criminals, whether crime-related or not, and bans ICE from having a “public advocate.” And it would create an advisory council that in the near-term would likely be dominated by immigration hawks appointed by the president, chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees, the ICE prosecutor’s union, and the ICE union that endorsed Trump.

ICE didn’t answer a request to describe deportation officers’ current weapons.

A separate bill from Goodlatte on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services could restrict lawmakers’ ability to influence cases by barring “preferential treatment” or sharing information with elected officials and stakeholders on individual cases. Democratic aides interpreted the measure as meant to prevent members of Congress from intervening in cases. It would also authorize E-Verify, the program for employers to check whether their employees are eligible to work in the U.S.

“The United States has a generous immigration system and has become home for millions of people seeking to live the American dream, grow our economy, and flee persecution,” Goodlatte said in a statement last week. “We have a duty to ensure our immigration laws are enforced, operate efficiently, and work in the national interest.”

A third immigration bill, a version of which was introduced in the last Congress but not enacted, would authorize state and local law enforcement to get more involved in detention and deportation efforts. The bill is broadly aimed at combatting so-called sanctuary city policies restricting local law enforcement cooperation with ICE, which the Trump administration has promised to eliminate. The bill was introduced this year by Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho).

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) expressed frustration on Monday that bills were being marked up so quickly after their introduction, which he said indicated Republicans were “not serious about building consensus or crafting, debating, and passing thoughtful legislation.”

“This is about brandishing their swords and using the immigration issue as a political weapon, which is frankly pretty much what I have come to expect from Judiciary Republicans these days,” Gutierrez told HuffPost in a statement.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) are separately working on legislation on border security and immigration enforcement, but have yet to unveil their bill.

Also on HuffPost

April 2015

At an event hosted by Texas Patriots PAC: “Everything’s coming across the border: the illegals, the cars, the whole thing. It’s like a big mess. Blah. It’s like vomit.”
At an event hosted by Texas Patriots PAC: “Everything’s coming across the border: the illegals, the cars, the whole thing. It’s like a big mess. Blah. It’s like vomit.”

June 2015

At a speech announcing his campaign: "When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

August 2015

On NBC's "Meet the Press": “We’re going to keep the families together, we have to keep the families together, but they have to go." 
On NBC's "Meet the Press": “We’re going to keep the families together, we have to keep the families together, but they have to go." 

September 2015

On CBS's "60 Minutes": “We’re rounding ‘em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they’re going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn’t sound nice. But not everything is nice.”
On CBS's "60 Minutes": “We’re rounding ‘em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they’re going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn’t sound nice. But not everything is nice.”

November 2015

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe": “You are going to have a deportation force, and you are going to do it humanely." 
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe": “You are going to have a deportation force, and you are going to do it humanely." 

February 2016

At a GOP primary debate: “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out. They will come back ― some will come back, the best, through a process.”
At a GOP primary debate: “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out. They will come back ― some will come back, the best, through a process.”

March 2016

At a press conference when asked if he would consider allowing undocumented immigrants to stay: "We either have a country or we don’t. We either have a country or we don’t. We have borders or we don’t have borders. And at this moment, the answer is absolutely not.”
At a press conference when asked if he would consider allowing undocumented immigrants to stay: "We either have a country or we don’t. We either have a country or we don’t. We have borders or we don’t have borders. And at this moment, the answer is absolutely not.”

April 2016

At an event hosted by NBC's "Today Show": “They’re going to go, and we’re going to create a path where we can get them into this country legally, OK? But it has to be done legally. ... They’re going to go, and then come back and come back legally.”
At an event hosted by NBC's "Today Show": “They’re going to go, and we’re going to create a path where we can get them into this country legally, OK? But it has to be done legally. ... They’re going to go, and then come back and come back legally.”

July 2016

At the Republican National Convention: "Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied ― and every politician who has denied them ― to listen very closely to the words I am about to say. On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced."

September 2016

At a rally: “Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have laws and to have a country. Otherwise we don’t have a country.”
At a rally: “Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have laws and to have a country. Otherwise we don’t have a country.”

September 2016

On "The Dr. Oz Show": “Well, under my plan the undocumented or, as you would say, illegal immigrant wouldn’t be in the country. They only come in the country legally.”
On "The Dr. Oz Show": “Well, under my plan the undocumented or, as you would say, illegal immigrant wouldn’t be in the country. They only come in the country legally.”

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.