A new bill introduced by a Congressional Republican this week would drastically increase the criminal penalties for those illegally entering the United States; making first-time crossing a federal felony instead of a misdemeanor.
The legislation -introduced by Tennessee GOP Rep. Diane Black- would make all first-time crossers face felony charges and face a mandatory jail sentence of one year in prison.
“Her Zero Tolerance for Illegal Entry Act would change the punishment for those apprehended illegally entering the U.S. for the first time to one year and one day in prison, which therefore makes it a felony. Today, the misdemeanor offense comes with jail term of up to six months,” writes the Washington Examiner.
“What this bill does is it sets up a huge disincentive,” she told the Washington Examiner. “There is already a process set up and they should be using what the process is … We’re not penalizing people are who doing things the right way seeking asylum. This is for people who are going around the system.”
Not in mine either. The problem isnt Trump. It is the congress. I fully support this measure making it a felony for illegal entry. Congress needs to come up with a law and that law should be enforced.
I also fully support opening up our immigration system. Someone who applies for entry should have an answer with in 30 days. Also they should be self supporting for the first 2 years. Think Ellis Island.
You are right. The amount of time involved in every immigration action is way too slow. The “self supporting” is a good idea that or guaranteed sponsorship which includes financial support for X amount of time.
I have called for years that illegal entry be a felony. First time caught the felon can take the voluntary America paid bus ticket home option or the year incarceration option with deportation at the end. Second time getting caught crossing illegally is a minimum of 2 years incarceration.
You are right, I don’t blame Trump for the decades and decades of immigration and border chaos in this country. I blame past Presidents, such as Obama, and Bush and those Congresses that never tried hard enough to fix these issues but just kept kicking the can down the road.
I do blame Trump for the newest level of chaos at the border and with immigration, he is putting sprinkles on the chaos cake that was baked and iced by our do nothing politicians of the past.
I do blame Trump for his dangerous but base pleasing anti immigrant rhetoric. He is, without any doubt by me, engendering the nastier sides of xenophobic feelings in many people in this country.
My grandmother came through Ellis Island. She wasn’t self supporting. She was six years old. People then, like Trump today, thought of her as an “infestation”. I do blame Trump for his nasty rhetoric, and the results I can see happening from it.
Opening up our immigration system? Perhaps, but I think we have to fix what we have so that it works before we open anything up. I am not opposed to that idea, for legal comers, if we could get Congress off their collective duff’s, hire some immigration judges, get rid of backlogs. Change some rules.
while I’m not in favor of illegal immigration, I don’t like this idea either. we don’t want illegal immigrants in this country because we don’t want them to receive welfare and medical benefits. So to prevent that we propose to house, feed, and care for them for 1 year in they make it here. And our prisons are probably worlds better than the ■■■■hole countries they are coming from.
Valid point. Mexican prisons are way harsher than ours. People don’t actually want to spend time in one. Inmates in the US meanwhile have access to cable TV and internet…
Illegal immigrants are not citizens, if Congress does it right they could be imprisoned in less than stellar, less than friendly American Citizen coddling type prisons.
Yeah but then we wouldn’t be applying equal protection would we? And the government has already said on multiple occasions the 14th doesn’t just apply to citizens. Prison here used to be a lot worse, then someone decided it was inhumane…
Just playing devil’s advocate here Lou. You know it wouldn’t fly with a lot of people treating them like second class citizens. While we’re at it, maybe we should look at reforming prisons so they aren’t a place felons want to keep going back to…
I never understand this desire of some of our far right wing folks to look to the most despicable methods practiced by despicable countries as aspirations for us.
