FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans introduced a bill Wednesday, the Punishing Illegal Immigrant Felons Act, which would dramatically increase penalties for criminal activity by illegal immigrants, something the bill’s sponsors believe can help deliver a death blow to organized crime by illegals in the U.S.
Rep. Brad Knott, R-N.C., said the bill already has robust support in the House and that key members of the Trump administration have been very “supportive.”
This comes as the Trump administration has moved quickly to lock down the border and begin arresting the “worst of the worst” illegal aliens present in the country. The Trump administration has promised to be “ruthlessly aggressive” in cracking down on illegal criminal groups endangering Americans.
However, Knott, who introduced the bill Wednesday, told Fox News Digital that, from his experience as a prosecutor, he believes Congress must act quickly to secure the permanent changes needed to deter many of the hardened criminals who have made organized crime in the U.S. “big business.”
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“There is a very real set group of criminals that a wall and deportations alone is wholly insufficient to deter them from coming to the United States to commit crime,” Knott said. “I have prosecuted people who were deported more than ten times. Yet they come back exclusively to commit crime, whether that is human trafficking, whether it’s drug trafficking, whether it’s money laundering, you name it.”
Knott said, up until now, there has been an “incentive” for criminals, including members of migrant gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, to come to the U.S. “because they are able to enrich themselves with very low risk of extreme cost.”
“Two years is no deterrent,” he said. “I prosecuted cartel members, and if they got a 24-month sentence, a two-year sentence, it would not interrupt their criminal operation at all.”
During his time as a federal prosecutor, Knott said, instances of illegal felons returning to commit more crimes after being deported were “too many to remember.”
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“I talked to someone who was deported more than ten times … and I asked him, ‘Why do you keep coming back to the United States?’ And he was very candid with me. He said, ‘Why wouldn’t I?’” Knott shared. “He could make more money. He could operate in a country that was safer. People were nice. He could enrich himself while poisoning the children that he would sell drugs to.
“This bill in large part closes that gap in the law,” he explained. “It categorizes illegal aliens who commit crimes in a wholly different category.”
If passed and signed into law, Knott’s bill would increase the punishment for any crime committed by an illegal alien that is punishable by more than one year from a maximum of two years to a minimum of five years.
Illegals who are removed and then reenter the country illegally can also face up to ten years in prison under the law.
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For illegal felons who have been previously removed from the country and returned again to commit more crimes, the bill would increase the punishment to a minimum of ten years and up to life in prison.
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Knott explained that the bill still leaves flexibility to federal authorities, leaving the option of deportation on the table while simultaneously increasing the legal penalties available to erase the incentives for illegally entering the country to commit crimes.
He said ” flexibility is what law enforcement needs to really combat this on a person-by-person basis.”
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“The wall is important. Deportations are important, and we must maintain those. But we also must close the gap in the law so that, regardless of who’s president, we have the tools to fight the illegal immigrant criminals who inflict so much pain on this country,” said Knott.
“Immigration should be a net benefit to our country,” he added. “If we don’t punish those who want to come here to commit crimes, we will never have a healthy immigration system again. If we don’t fix this problem now, we might not have the chance to do it.“
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