201 House Dems vote against bill named after 20-year-old American killed by illegal immigrant teen
Two hundred and one House Democrats voted against a bill that Republicans say would prevent dangerous migrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children from walking free on the...
By Fox News · Fox News
Two hundred and one House Democrats voted against a bill that Republicans say would prevent dangerous migrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children from walking free on the streets. The legislation passed in a 225 to 201 vote. Just seven Democrats voted with Republicans on the bill, including Reps. Adam Gray, D-Calif., Jared Golden, D-Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., Don Davis, D-N.C., Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas. The Kayla Hamilton Act is named after a 20-year-old woman with autism who was killed by a 16-year-old from El Salvador, Walter Javier Martinez, in 2022. Martinez pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in April of this year. Martiez came to the U.S. illegally as an unaccompanied minor and was a member of the notorious MS-13 gang , according to a press release by the Maryland State Attorney's Office in Hartford County. REP JASMINE CROCKETT REFERS TO YOUNG WOMAN MURDERED BY AN MS-13 ILLEGAL MIGRANT AS A ‘RANDOM DEAD PERSON’ The bill, led by Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., would heighten screening requirements for unaccompanied migrant children (UAC) who come to the U.S. undocumented in ways that Republicans argue could prevent future tragedies like Hamilton's. "I think in this one instance, a simple phone call to El Salvador would have kept him in a secure facility. An eyeball check on gang tattoos on his body would have kept him in the secure facility, because he had both. He would have never been on our streets. He would have been in a security facility pending his immigration hearing, which happens pretty quickly," Fry told Fox News Digital on Tuesday afternoon. His bill would mandate the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to screen unaccompanied minors for gang tattoos, and place UACs who have such indicators in secure federal facilities rather than letting them go to a sponsor somewhere in the U.S. It would also prohibit unaccompanied minors from going to sponsors who are also undocumented in the U.S. HOUSE UNANI…