(WatchDogReport.org) – Republican Iowa Senator Joni Ernst tried to force a floor vote on March 6 on a law that required every illegal alien who committed violent crimes to be detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). However, her unanimous consent request was blocked by Majority Whip and Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, who objected to Ernst’s request, which main goal was to prevent avoidable attacks from illegal immigrants and resulting deaths.
The Iowa senator requested unanimous consent from the rest of the senators to pass Sarah’s Law to the floor for an official vote. During her speech, Ernst pleaded with senators to pass her legislation, recalling the deaths of Sarah Root and Laken Riley, who were allegedly killed by illegal aliens.
According to some reports, the legislation would require ICE to officially take into custody those illegal aliens who were arrested and charged with causing a serious injury or the death of another. Ernst reiterated this point during her speech and said that the bill would “merely” require ICE agents to detain “deportable” illegal aliens.
However, Durbin blocked her legislation a couple of minutes after her speech. He explained that the reason why he took that step was that he believed that the bill would eventually lead to some unwanted consequences that would affect innocent people. Durbin said some of these were the detention of trafficking and domestic abuse victims who were charged by authorities with crimes. The Majority Whip added that Ernst’s legislation would deprive illegal aliens of the due process that every single person in the United States “is afforded.”
Many media outlets reported that the measure’s namesake, Sarah Root, was killed by an illegal immigrant named Edwin Mejia, who hit her while drunk driving and eventually escaped after posting bond. Meanwhile, authorities arrested an illegal alien named Jose Ibarra in connection to the killing of 22-year-old Riley, who was a nursing student at the University of Georgia. Authorities charged Ibarra with numerous crimes, including felony murder and malice murder.
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