Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) disagreed with local officials from his Democratic Party that are fighting President Donald Trump’s orders to deport illegal immigrants.
Politicians and law enforcement officials from Chicago, Illinois, Minneapolis, Minnesota, to San Francisco, California are still pushing back in promises that they will not follow through with the deportations due to their sanctuary statuses. Fetterman suggested that these officials should support deporting criminal immigrants while on Fox News Sunday.
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“Every local official would agree that any of the migrants that are here with criminal backgrounds or engaging in criminal behavior, I think that they should support that,” Fetterman said on Fox News Sunday. “Now, if ICE comes to round them up, I hope they would provide that kind of support. I would certainly never support terrorizing otherwise innocent migrants in those kinds of situations, or kicking in a door at a school. But I think we can all agree that every migrant here with a criminal background or engaging in criminal behavior needs to go.”
There are no reports of ICE officials coming to schools. However, for example, in Oklahoma, schools are requiring the citizenship status of their students before enrolling them.
Fetterman was in the minority of Democratic senators who voted for the Laken Riley Act earlier this month, with 35 voting against it and 12 voting in its favor. The legislation is named after the University of Georgia student who was killed on campus. Riley’s murderer, Jose Ibarra, 26, was an illegal immigrant from Venezuela living near campus. When Trump signed the bill into law — his first during his second term — Fetterman sat with Riley’s family.
Another 159 Democratic House members voted against the bill in their respective chamber, with only 48 voting for it.
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Ibarra was arrested in the United States prior to Riley’s murder, and authorities knew he was an illegal immigrant but released him back into the country rather than deport him. Because of the Laken Riley Act, those illegal immigrants who commit crimes and find themselves arrested will be held in federal detention until they are ultimately deported.
Ibarra was convicted of murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, and tampering with evidence last year. As a result, he was sentenced to life in prison.