A top congressional Democrat is warning that a committee-passed bill meant to expedite the deportation of immigrants with certain criminal convictions is so broad that even high-school students “who regularly gather to smoke marijuana” could be defined as a “criminal gang” under its provisions.
About four months after the House Judiciary Committee passed the “Expedited Removal of Criminal Aliens Act,” the panel released its report that lays out the majority and minority opinions about the legislation that’s now up for floor action. Representative Jaime Raskin (D-MD), ranking member of the committee, authored the “dissenting views” section of the report, sounding the alarm about potential enforcement overreach.
“This 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,” he said. “And unfortunately, the few guardrails this bill tries to insert are woefully inadequate. The definition of a ‘criminal gang’ 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.”
“For 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,” Raskin continued. “This could mean a group [of] high school kids who regularly gather to smoke marijuana, even in a state where it is lawful, could be deemed a ‘criminal gang’ under this bill.”
Of course, while young people routinely engaging in smoke sessions aren’t 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.
In any case, the congressman said H.R. 5713, the immigration enforcement proposal that’s before the House, “is 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’s most recent rulings.”
A noncitizen would be subject to expedited removal proceedings under the legislation based on certain convictions or if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary designates them terrorists or gang members.
Raskin previously pressed the former head of DHS during Trump’s 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 the parent’s removal.
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’ve used or possessed marijuana.
Similar language also advanced through the appropriations process in 2021, but it was not included in the final package following bicameral negotiations. Nor was the 2022 version.
Meanwhile, a study published in 2024 found that states that legalize marijuana see a “moderate relative decrease” in immigrant deportation rates compared to states where the drug remains banned, as well as a slight decrease in overall cannabis-related arrests.
Image (cropped) via State of Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board
This story was originally published by Marijuana Moment, which tracks the politics and policy of cannabis and drugs. Follow Marijuana Moment on X and Facebook, and sign up for its newsletter.
