Despite months of horrifying headlines in Massachusetts about illegal immigrants charged with sex offenses — often victimizing minors — only two of the Bay State’s nine U.S. House members voted for the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act.
But just north of the state line, both New Hampshire Democrats broke with their party to back the GOP bill mandating the deportation of illegal aliens who commit sex offenses. It also mandates that illegal aliens convicted of sex offenses or domestic violence—or those who admit to such crimes—will be deemed inadmissible to the United States.
The bill passed the House 274-145. All 145 opponents were Democrats.
Reps. Maggie Goodlander and Chris Pappas also backed the Laken Riley Act in the first vote of the 119th Congress.
“No family should endure the heartbreak the families of Laken Riley, Mollie Tibbetts, Karina Vetrano, and Maddie Hines have experienced,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). “Every woman and every girl deserves to feel safe in their own community. The radical left doesn’t agree with this.”
Goodlander and Pappas would not respond to requests for comment from NHJournal.
Mark Krikorian with the Center for Immigration Studies called out the Democrats who voted against this bill.
“Too many Democrats reject the very idea of deporting anyone, regardless of their crimes. Democrats aren’t monsters — they do want rapists to serve their time in prison. It’s just that they also believe illegal alien criminals should be released back into our communities after they complete their sentences, because they believe no one who doesn’t want to leave the country should be forced to do so.”
In just the past few months, there are been a series of arrests in Massachusetts of illegal immigrants on charges of sex offenses targeting minors. They include an Ecuadorian national in Plymouth facing rape and kidnapping charges, a Mexican man living in Lynn who had previously been deported following a rape conviction, and a Guatemalan man who illegally entered the country in 2016 and was later charged with first-degree child molestation sexual assault.
In one particularly disturbing case, a Massachusetts judge released a migrant charged with the rape of a developmentally disabled underage victim rather than honor an immigration detainer. The alleged rapist was later rearrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In another case, ICE tracked down a Haitian migrant charged raping a disabled 15-year-old girl after a Massachusetts judge set him free on $500 bail.
New Hampshire Republicans, led by Gov. Kelly Ayotte, have made passing a ban on sanctuary policies a top priority. But while the state’s all-Democrat federal delegation has moved to the right on immigration enforcement since the November election — both Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen voted to advance the Laken Riley Act last week — in Concord, Democrats have yet to show the same flexibility.
No Democrats in the state legislature have publicly announced their support for the sanctuary city ban, and a group of progressives have already sent Ayotte a letter denouncing her stance.
“Our neighbors to the south seem intent on proving that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result,” Ayotte said in a recent statement. “As they struggle with a billion-dollar illegal immigrant crisis, they are instead choosing to double down,” Ayotte said in a recent statement. “Here in New Hampshire, we are going to ban sanctuary policies and give law enforcement the tools to work together to ensure this crisis never comes to our towns.”
