'Outrageous': House Dems rip GOP for using 'cruel' scapegoat to distract from national 'dumpster fire'

On Monday, April 9, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on immigration and sanctuary cities. And tempers flared when Democratic lawmakers — including Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Illinois) and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) — accused Republicans of scapegoating immigrants in the hope of creating a distraction from President Donald Trump's economic policies.

Garcia commented, "Another day, and another hearing to distract the country from the dumpster fire of the Trump Administration. Instead of talking about how (President Donald) Trump and (Elon) Musk are destroying our economy, busting unions, gutting Social Security and Medicaid, stealing people's private information and trampling on civil liberties, Republicans are here to — surprise, surprise — scapegoat immigrants once again. The Republican playbook on immigration is dishonest and cruel."

Garcia added that immigrants committing crimes are "the exception and not the rule."

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Crockett (D-Texas), herself an attorney, told Rep. Tom McClintock (R-California) and others who were present during the hearing, "As somebody who has actually practiced criminal defense…. I can tell you that I have handled thousands of cases — not hundreds of cases, thousands…. If I had to look at the vast majority of the cases I was representing criminal defendants on, the vast majority of them just didn't happen to be immigrants."

Crockett accused her "Republican colleagues" of pushing a "false narrative" that "sanctuary cities" are "harboring criminals."

The liberal congresswoman added, "Yet right here in DC, we have a 34-count felon being harbored in the White House. The hypocrisy coming from your side of the aisle over concerns regarding lawlessness is outrageous."

The "34-count felon" Crockett was referring to was Trump, who was convicted on 34 criminal counts in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money/falsified business records case.

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Crockett argued, "What Trump and ICE are doing is a disgrace, and it all being done without respect for our laws…. The problem is that we have an incompetent administration, that everything that they touch turns to s---. Because what they do is they take a wide sweeping brush, and they have decided that the enemy is now going to be immigrants instead of taking a scalpel."

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Watch the hearing below or at this link.