A top congressional Democrat is warning that a committee-passed bill meant to expedite the deportation of immigrants who\u2019ve committed certain crimes is so broad that even \u201chigh school students who regularly gather to smoke marijuana\u201d could be defined as a \u201ccriminal gang\u201d under its provisions.<\/p>\n
About four months after the House Judiciary Committee passed the \u201cExpedited Removal of Criminal Aliens Act,\u201d the panel released its report that lays out the majority and minority opinions about the legislation that\u2019s now up for floor action. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD), ranking member of the committee, authored the \u201cdissenting views\u201d section of the report, sounding the alarm about potential enforcement overreach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Administration has demonstrated it cannot be trusted to identify gang members and terrorists. But this bill would give them even more power to do that and strip people of their due process rights,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd unfortunately, the few guardrails this bill tries to insert are woefully inadequate. The definition of a \u2018criminal gang\u2019 in this bill is extremely broad and allows the Administration to label all sorts of people as gang members without requiring much, or even any, evidence at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, the bill states a criminal gang is an ongoing group, club, organization, or association of five or more persons that has as one of its primary purposes the commission of: a felony drug offense, including felony simple possession of marijuana,\u201d Raskin said. \u201cThis could mean a group high school kids who regularly gather to smoke marijuana, even in a state where it is lawful, could be deemed a \u2018criminal gang\u2019 under this bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, while young people routinely engaging in smoke sessions aren\u2019t treated like criminal gangs in states that have enacted legalization, adult-use marijuana laws that have been enacted at the state level still prohibit the sale, possession and use of cannabis for those under 21.<\/p>\n
In any case, the congressman said<\/a> H.R. 5713<\/a>, the immigration enforcement proposal that\u2019s before the House, \u201cis a dangerous bill that has the potential to act as a blunt instrument to conduct mass deportations and strip individuals of their rights to due process under the Constitution and even this Supreme Court\u2019s most recent rulings.\u201d<\/p>\n A noncitizen would be subject to expedited removal proceedings under the legislation if they are convicted of certain violent or sexual crimes or if the homeland security secretary designates them as terrorists or gang members.<\/p>\n Raskin previously pressed the former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during Trump\u2019s first term over criteria used to separate immigrants from their children, pressing the then-secretary in 2019 on whether a prior arrest over simple possession of marijuana could be used to justify<\/a> the parent\u2019s removal.<\/p>\n In 2022 under the Biden administration, a House spending bill for DHS included a section that would have prevented the agency from using any federal funding to deny admission to, or deport, immigrants who\u2019ve used or possessed marijuana<\/a>.<\/p>\n Similar language also\u00a0advanced through the appropriations process<\/a>\u00a0in 2021, but it was not included in the final package following bicameral negotiations. Nor was the 2022 version.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a study published in 2024 found that states that legalize marijuana see a \u201cmoderate relative decrease\u201d in immigrant deportation rates<\/a> compared to states where the drug remains illegal, as well as a slight decrease in overall cannabis-related arrests.<\/p>\n The post People Who \u2018Regularly Gather To Smoke Marijuana\u2019 Could Be Deemed A \u2018Criminal Gang\u2019 And Deported Under House Bill, Congressman Warns<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A top congressional Democrat is warning that a committee-passed bill meant to expedite the deportation of immigrants who\u2019ve committed certain crimes is so broad that even \u201chigh school students who regularly gather to smoke marijuana\u201d could be defined as a \u201ccriminal gang\u201d under its provisions. About four months after theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85683,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85682\/revisions\/85683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: People Who \u2018Regularly Gather To Smoke Marijuana\u2019 Could Be Deemed A \u2018Criminal Gang\u2019 And Deported Under House Bill, Congressman Warns<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"