“Look at what members of Congress are invested in private prison companies … and look at the votes on this bill.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) slammed the Laken Riley Act in a speech on the House floor on Wednesday, pointing out that some House members may have financial incentives to vote for the extremist anti-immigrant, pro-carceral bill: their own bank accounts.
In a fiery speech, the lawmaker said that the bill — which allows immigration authorities to detain immigrants who have been arrested over accusations of theft — makes a mockery of Americans’ civil rights and due process.
“We’re seeing a fundamental erosion of civil rights in this bill. If a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they will be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and sent out for deportation without a day in court — without a moment to assert the privilege of innocent until proven guilty,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She went on to point out that the private prison industry, which lobbies intensely in Washington, will benefit greatly from the massive influx of incarceration that the bill will cause if signed into law. Private prisons have already begun to see a rise in their stock values as the bill has moved through Congress, over the supposed value proposition of the Trump presidency and increased imprisonment of immigrants.
“Private prison companies are going to get flooded with money,” Ocasio-Cortez warned, pointing out that the bill is slated to cost $83 billion over three years.
“I want folks at home to look at what members of Congress are invested in private prison companies who receive this kind of money and look at the votes on this bill. It is atrocious that people are lining their pockets with private prison profits in the name of a horrific tragedy and the victim of a crime. It is shameful,” she went on.
The Laken Riley Act passed the House 263 to 156 on Wednesday, with all Republicans and 46 Democrats voting “yes.” The Senate passed the bill earlier this week with 64 “yes” votes, with 12 Democrats, including Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), voting to pass the bill.
If President Donald Trump signs the bill, as he is expected to do, it will be the first bill he signs in his second term.
Ocasio-Cortez warned that the bill will usher in a new era of horrific treatment of immigrants, fueled in part by dozens of members of her own party.
“In a few months, there are members of Congress who voted for this bill who are going to pretend they didn’t know about all of the bad things that are going to happen because of it,” she said. “So when a private prison camp opens in your town, and they say, ‘we didn’t know that this was going to happen,’ — know that they did. And they voted for it.”
“When a Dreamer is disappeared from your classroom, when the president of the United States destroyed what is left of the Constitution as he’s announced in his attack on birthright citizenship, they will all say, ‘we didn’t know this was coming,’” she went on. “And I want the American people to know that they did. This vote represents it.”
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Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.
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