As the United States Senate is expected to vote on Friday on a bill passed in the US House of Representatives that would allow the deportation of undocumented Caribbean and other immigrants who are charged with – not found guilty of – nonviolent crimes, including burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting, two Caribbean immigrant advocacy groups have urged the Senate to flatly reject the measure.
Make the Road New York (MRNY) and the San Diego, CA-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) on Wednesday joined the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy and advocacy organization that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York, in strongly condemning the Laken Riley Act (H.R. 29), describing it as “an overreach.”
The legislation is named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student, who was killed while jogging on Feb. 22, 2024 at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA.
Venezuelan national José Antonio Ibarra, 26, who had illegally entered the United States, was found guilty in Riley’s murder on Nov. 20, 2024, and is currently serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Clearly, with President-elect Donald J. Trump’s proposed mass deportation of Caribbean and other immigrants in mind, 48 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted on Tuesday with all House Republicans in passing the Laken Riley Act.
The measure seems headed for enactment with bipartisan support in the US Senate, which plans to adopt the legislation on Friday.
“The Senate must reject this misguided legislation,” Theo Oshiro, MRNY’s co-executive director, told Caribbean Life. “This bill would cause irreparable harm to our communities by expanding mandatory detention and letting anti-immigrant state attorneys general effectively control federal immigration policy through litigation whenever they oppose releasing someone from immigration custody.
“We know that Donald Trump has vilified immigrants in order to divide the American people, but it is unconscionable of elected officials to green-light these cruel policies,” added Oshiro, whose organization comprises over 28,000 members and operates five community centers in Bushwick, Brooklyn; Jackson Heights, Queens; Port Richmond, Staten Island; Brentwood, Long Island; and White Plains, Westchester County.
“Immigrants are entitled to due process, just like everyone else living in this country. We are not pawns to be sold out in order to score political points,” he continued. “Immigrants are our family, our neighbors, our friends, and our coworkers. They now have to live in fear with a target on their backs.
“With an increase in xenophobic sentiment being spewed by political leaders, there is now an even higher likelihood that immigrants will be racially profiled and arrested for a crime they did not commit—that in simply going to school or work they might be separated from their loved ones forever,” he said.
MRNY’s co-executive director said that low-income Black, Brown and immigrant communities “already suffer disproportionate impacts of police violence.
“This legislation only adds to that burden,” he said. “The Senate must step in and protect families all over the country from this destructive overreach of the federal government.”
HBA said while it strongly condemns the murder of Laken Riley, it believes the passage of the Laken Riley Act by the US House of Representatives “constitutes an overreach.”
“The bill is a draconian piece of legislation that undermines America’s commitment to human rights, criminalizes the most vulnerable, and dismantles critical asylum protections,” Guerline Jozef, HBA’s executive director, told Caribbean Life. “The Laken Riley Act is a devastating attack on those who are fleeing violence, political persecution and extreme poverty.
“Instead of addressing the root causes of migration, this bill seeks to close doors, weaponize bureaucracy, and strip away the legal and humanitarian safeguards that define our nation’s values,” she added. “This legislation is a direct affront to America’s longstanding tradition of offering refuge to the oppressed.
“The Laken Riley Act does not enhance security or fairness; it institutionalizes cruelty, targets asylum seekers, and denies safety to those who need it most, including Haitians escaping political violence and insecurity,” Jozef continued. “At a time when Haitians and other marginalized groups face unprecedented crises, the passage of this act sends a clear and chilling message: the lives of Black and Brown migrants are disposable.
“This law represents a calculated effort to dehumanize migrants and perpetuate racial discrimination in our immigration system and in the Black community,” she said. “The Laken Riley Act has the potential to exacerbate racial profiling and disproportionately target Black communities, which are already subjected to over-policing and over-criminalization.”
Jozef said HBA, therefore, urges the US Senate to “reject this legislation and calls on all Americans to stand in solidarity with migrants and asylum seekers.
“Together, we must uphold the principles of compassion, fairness, and justice that this nation was built upon,” she said.
On Tuesday, Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s president and chief executive officer, noted that, “In America, everyone is afforded due process under the law. Everyone deserves their day in court, and the chance to argue for their innocence.
“However, Congress is now taking a draconian turn towards denying people this fundamental Constitutional right,” Awawdeh said. “We know that Black and Brown Americans – and New Yorkers – are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement.
“If this bill becomes law, immigrants who are swept up in this enforcement, without even being convicted of a crime, could be permanently separated from their families before having the opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law – in direct violation of their Constitutional rights,” he warned.
“It is shocking to see our elected leaders so callously throwing immigrants under the bus in the hopes that they can build their own political futures with Donald Trump,” Awawdeh added. “We are calling on our elected officials in the Senate to wake up to the realities of what this will mean for families and communities across our country, and to reject this fascist legislation.”
Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington, said on the House floor on Tuesday: “People deserve to have their day in court and are innocent until proven guilty. That seems to be something that the majority (Republicans) has forgotten or doesn’t seem to care about.”
Last month, Caribbean-American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke joined US lawmakers and immigration advocates in calling on the Biden administration to protect Black immigrant communities during the lame duck session.
The legislators said they were particularly concerned about how Trump’s proposed immigration policies will impact Black communities and families of mixed status.
Trump, who will be sworn in on January 20, has vowed to conduct mass deportation of immigrants, particularly Haitians. He had made the issue a central theme of his presidential campaign.
Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the predominantly Caribbean 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, had held a press conference with congressional colleagues and advocacy groups at the Capitol in Washington.
The press conference came on the heels of a letter Clarke, who was recently elected chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and her colleagues sent to Biden, urging him to exercise his existing legal authorities and adopt several executive actions.
These include extending and redesignating Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for currently designated countries; clearing the TPS processing backlog; finalizing a rule to provide auto-extensions for work permits; taking immediate steps to prioritize the processing of work permits across all categories; and designating special student relief (SSR) to Nigerian F-1 students studying in the United States.
“During President-elect Trump’s previous term, we saw the Trump administration enact detrimental policies, such as expanding migrant detention programs and building a wall along the US-Mexico Border,” lawmakers wrote in their letter. “Further in 2019, we witnessed Immigration and Customs Enforcement detain migrants at record-high levels with Black detainees facing abuse at disproportionate rates.
“With his pledge to conduct the largest mass deportation in history and enlist the military to carry out this plan, we are extremely concerned that people of African descent will be targeted at higher rates,” they added. “These actions are imperative to protect innocent people and families from further disruptions to their lives.”
