House bill would enhance sentencing guidelines for repeat offenders of immigration crimes

Sentencing guidelines would be strengthened for new crimes committed by undocumented immigrants who were previously convicted of unlawful entry to the country under a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The Peter, Ellie and Grayson Victims of Illegal Criminal Entry (VOICES) Act of 2018, H.R. 5526, is named in honor of a Texas family killed in a car crash in March 2016. The bill would elevate the charge of unlawful presence in the United States to an aggravating factor in felony cases. It would also stipulate that time served in a state facility can’t count toward an existing sentence for an immigration-related crime.

The bill was influenced by the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Peter Hackenberg and his children, Ellie and Grayson. An undocumented immigrant named Margarito Quintero Rosales convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the fatal crash was given a two-year sentence. However, the two-year sentence was to be served concurrently with an existing sentence for illegal reentry following a prior deportation.

U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), the sponsor of the VOICES Act, said the bill would ensure that “tragedies like this will be properly deterred by stopping illegal criminal aliens from falling through the cracks of our criminal justice system.”

“My heart was broken when I learned about the devastating loss of Peter, Ellie, and Grayson,” Ratcliffe continued. “This tragedy was caused by someone who was here illegally in the first place. And worse yet, our current laws allowed him to escape with what equated to no additional punishment on top of his existing sentences.”

The VOICES Act would also enable prosecutors to consider crimes committed after unlawful entry on the federal level. That change aims to help ensure that state sentences for additional crimes won’t be served concurrently with federal sentences for immigration-related crimes.