House votes to update immigration law in gang crackdown

The U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to change immigration law to make membership in a criminal gang both a deportable offense and justification for barring entry in the first place.

The bill, entitled the “Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act,” would allow the Department of Homeland Security to consult with the Department of Justice to designate various groups as criminal gangs if they engage in any of the following activities: violent crime, drug felonies, witness tampering, human trafficking, harboring other criminal immigrants or money laundering. Members of said gangs would then be stripped of rights of asylum, temporary protected status, and special immigrant juvenile visas.

Current law does not hold this to be the case, and the vote over the change was hardly straightforward. It passed by a 233-175 margin.

“I’ve seen the tragic consequences of gang violence during my 20 years as a prosecutor and now in Congress,” U.S. Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY) said. “Violent criminal gang members should not be walking the streets, but it adds insult to injury when they never should have been in our country in the first place. Today’s vote will allow immigration authorities to deny entry to violent gang members or deport them if they’re already here.”

Donovan, one of the bill’s supporters, has also been a vocal proponent of President Donald Trump’s plans to crackdown on gang violence and increase deportation of gang members.